


more than the moon and the sun

by yuyangs



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hotarubi no Mori e Fusion, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Songfic, YES they are childhood friends YES they are in love YES i will elaborate, Yokai!Sakusa, human!Atsumu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27223267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuyangs/pseuds/yuyangs
Summary: After a particularly bad fight with his brother, Atsumu unwittingly finds himself lost in the forest behind his grandmother's house. He has no means to get back home—that is, until he meets a boy who claims to not be human at all.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 50
Kudos: 348





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is.. my baby... aka the brainrot that somehow became a fully fledged Thing after haphazardly talking about it in the DMs. The premise is loosely inspired by the movie "Hotarubi no Mori e", I changed some parts though, because I can.
> 
> Title and lyrics are taken from ["In the Wind" by Lord Huron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khuY7gv2KlU)

_You are the purest soul I’ve ever known_ _  
__In my life_

* * *

Atsumu is eight years old and he is lost in a forest.

He doesn’t know how exactly it happened, maybe he took a wrong turn, maybe he was just complacent. Actually, he knows why; he was just so upset that he didn’t care where he was running to so long as he ran. And now he’s in an unfamiliar place, in between trees that create a barrier over the sky with just a few spots of sunlight that reach the forest floor. The water of the creek in front of him flows slowly, smoothening the rocks in the bed, dulling the edges into something that resembles an egg. He can hear the murmurs of the cicadas around him so at least he knows he’s not completely alone.

Stupid Osamu. Why did he have to say those things?

 _“You’re adopted, Atsumu,”_ Osamu had said to him with an even voice, as if what he was saying was fact. Osamu was angry with him, Atsumu knew that but he was still hurt.

Atsumu scrunched up his face, incredulous. _“We have the same face though.”_

_“You’re actually a yokai mom picked up at the side of the road who was obsessed with looking like me—”_

Atsumu threw his toy at Osamu’s face with a force that he knew would cause a bruise and then ran out of his grandmother’s house in tears.

Atsumu remembers running out of the backyard towards the mountain, his brother yelling after him to come back but he wasn’t listening by then. He has always been the more emotional twin. He ran up half the stairs of an old abandoned shrine before taking a detour on an old dirt path that was carved on the side of the mountain and into the forest, and somehow he ended up here. Alone.

Maybe Osamu was right when he called him the biggest idiot in existence.

He continues to cry when he hears a sound near him. There is rustling behind the trees closest to him and Atsumu starts to panic. His parents once told him to never wander off alone because bad things would happen to him. He vaguely remembers reading stories where monsters and spirits take children away from their families when they’re alone. His whole body starts to tremble and he finds that it’s starting to be difficult to breathe, like a snake has constricted around his entire body, not allowing him to move from his spot as he is being preyed on. An _ayakashi_ is going to steal him away, isn’t it?

He shuts his eyes tightly. Atsumu knows he’s being watched right now but he’s too scared to see what it might be. He hears his brother’s voice in his head, laughing at him.

 _“You’re such a coward, ‘Tsumu!”_ The voice says.

Osamu is wrong, Atsumu is _not_ a coward. 

So he opens his eyes, slowly steadying his breath.

It’s not an ayakashi.

Behind one of the trees, a boy peers at him. The boy looks to be around his age, small—a few inches shorter than himself—and thin, pale skin peeping through the yellow yukata he’s dressed in. He’s wearing wooden sandals on his feet and a traditional mask shaped like a weasel covers his whole face; a white base with red lines on the cheeks. The only thing Atsumu can see above his neck is the mop of black curls on his head. Atsumu feels a wave of relief wash through his body and he rushes towards the boy with open arms, excited to see another child in the forest. He isn’t alone.

He runs towards the mystery boy, arms open wide, only to fall flat on his face on the grass below. The boy had avoided him.

“Why did you do that?” Atsumu huffs indignantly, looking up from his feet.

The boy looks at him curiously. At least, Atsumu thinks he is because the boy tilts his head as if inspecting him. “I’m not allowed to touch humans,” the boy says flatly. “And you seem dirty anyway.”

Atsumu frowns at this and sits up, patting the grass off his shirt. “You’re so prickly. What are you? A sea urchin?”

The boy still stares down at him. “Don’t call me that,” he says, his voice has a tinge of anger in it. “And don’t touch me.” It almost sounds like the boy is pouting and that makes Atsumu laugh.

“What should I call you then?” Atsumu asks, his body still shaking with glee. And when the boy says nothing, he presses on. “What’s your name?”

And then, in a quiet voice, slightly strangled, “Ki… omi…” 

“What? Speak up! I can’t hear you,” Atsumu says, cupping his ear with a hand.

The boy looks to be struggling, holding onto the sleeves of his yukata tightly. He seems to be extremely uncomfortable with how squeamish he is at a simple question. _He’s shy,_ Atsumu realises, finding himself getting more and more curious the longer the silence stretches. How did the boy end up in the forest? Why is he dressed like he’s going to a festival? Is he lost too?

And then finally, the boy answers.

“Kiyoomi,” he says.

Atsumu grins at him. “My name’s Atsumu!”

“A… tsu… mu…” Kiyoomi repeats it slowly like he’s trying to have a feel of what the name feels like on his tongue and Atsumu decides that he likes it when Kiyoomi says his name. 

Atsumu nods. “That’s right!”

Kiyoomi moves to crouch in front of Atsumu so that they’re at eye-level, not that it matters because all Atsumu can look at is the two holes through the mask where the eyes would be. He wonders what Kiyoomi looks like under it.

“What are you doing here?” Kiyoomi asks.

Atsumu bites his lower lip, embarrassed, remembering the stupid reason he got here in the first place. “I got lost.”

“How did you get lost here in the first place?”

“I was fightin’ with my brother.”

“Fighting?” Kiyoomi asks, tucking his hands behind his knees.

Atsumu pulls at the grass next to his feet, not wanting to look at Kiyoomi anymore. “‘Samu was sayin’ really mean things to me so I threw a toy in his face and ran.”

He can imagine Kiyoomi frowning when the boy says, “That’s stupid—”

“I know! But he was bein’ stupid too!” he snaps, crossing his arms over his chest. “I feel bad though. It looked like it hurt.”

“Then you should apologise to him.”

Atsumu groans. He hates apologising because that means he admits defeat and he _hates_ losing. But he knows he can’t carry on with this stupid fight either. He sighs. “Okay.”

Kiyoomi nods. “I can help get you out of here.”

“Really?” Atsumu lights up and can’t help the smile that stretches across his face.

“Mhm,” Kiyoomi hums. “But you can’t touch me.”

Atsumu furrows his brows. “How are you supposed to bring me out if I can’t touch you?”

They end up walking side by side in silence, holding a stick between them so that Atsumu doesn’t get lost again. Kiyoomi brings him through the forest where it connects to the dirt path that Atsumu used earlier and soon, they find themselves on the stone steps of the shrine again. From here, Atsumu knows where to go but Kiyoomi still guides him anyway.

The sun is nearly setting, painting the sky in a wash of pink and orange, the clouds are starting to look yellow in the tint, too. The murmurs of the cicadas soon subside, as if they’re starting to fall asleep. Kiyoomi hasn’t looked at him since their conversation earlier and now Atsumu is starting to get curious. He glances to his left and quietly lets out a small breath.

Kiyoomi seems to glow in this light, a halo that’s backlit by the sun that peeps through the trees. He doesn’t look human like this. Atsumu remembers the strange thing Kiyoomi said earlier.

“Kiyoomi,” he starts and when he hears a hum of confirmation that the boy is listening, Atsumu continues. “You said you’re not allowed to touch humans, does that mean you’re not a human?”

Kiyoomi stops in his tracks and turns his head towards Atsumu, the face of a weasel boring holes into his own. Atsumu feels scared now, suddenly remembering the scary stories his cousins used to tell him about the _kamaitachi_ —weasel spirits who bare sickle-like nails, cutting up the victims who cross their paths. His grip on the stick loosens. 

“I’m not,” Kiyoomi says, shaking his head.

“Oh.” Atsumu looks down, eyes catching on Kiyoomi’s very normal-looking hands. Unsure of what to say, he settles on a question. “What are you then?”

“I think you know already,” Kiyoomi whispers, and Atsumu’s heart sinks. “That’s why I can’t touch you.”

“What does that have anythin’ to do with it?” From all the stories that Atsumu has heard, they wouldn’t mind touching, bothering or even killing humans. But still, he’s curious, curious of what Kiyoomi might say.

“I’ll disappear if I touch you.”

“I don’t want that!” The words betray his lips before he can even think about it. Atsumu gasps and soon, covers his mouth with his hands, eyes wide like he just did something wrong.

And then he hears it; Kiyoomi’s laugh. The boy’s body shakes, a hand over his belly as he laughs at Atsumu’s apparently amusing reaction. His voice is light and full of life, and it rings in Atsumu’s ear like the chime that blows in the wind at his grandmother’s house.

“You’re weird, Astumu,” Kiyoomi says. “Thank you.” He offers Atsumu the stick again, beckoning him to hold it. “We should get going, it’s going to be dark soon.”

“Okay.” He takes the stick.

Once they reach the bottom of the mountain, Atsumu finds himself not wanting to let go. He looks at Kiyoomi, the boy in the yellow yukata hidden underneath a white mask that looks like a weasel. “Can I come see you again?” Atsumu asks.

Kiyoomi seems to stare at him, a few beats pass between them in silence before he answers. “Okay,” he says quietly.

Atsumu waves him goodbye before leaving the mountain, walking towards his grandmother’s house. But he only takes a few steps forward before he turns around again to spare one last glance on the boy. The sound of a stick clattering as it hits the ground fills the air. To his disappointment, Kiyoomi is gone. He feels an ache in his chest, one that he doesn’t quite understand. It hurts much more than when it actually starts to thunder when he sprints. He runs back to his grandmother’s house, panting through the field all the way until he reaches the genkan where he kicks off his shoes and looks for his brother. 

“Osamu!” he calls checking the rooms until finally, he meets his mirror in the kitchen.

Osamu blinks at him, his lip torn from the toy that struck his face earlier, hand holding an onigiri his grandmother probably made earlier in the evening, and soon tears fall down his face. “‘Tsumu!” he calls back, dropping the onigiri back onto the plate before running to his brother. “I didn’t mean what I said,” he says, pulling Atsumu into a hug.

Atsumu’s chest feels heavy, but the weight starts to lift when he returns his brother’s hug. Face buried into his shoulder as he also whispers his apologies.

He gets told off by his grandmother for running off like that. She tells him that she was about to send out a search party for him because he was gone for so long. He apologises over and over to her, saying that he won’t do the same thing again.

At night as they share a futon even though there are two in the room, Atsumu whispers to his brother that he made a new friend when he was lost earlier.

“Who?” Osamu asks, inching closer to Atsumu so that their arms brush against each other, seemingly so that he knows his brother is still beside him.

“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu answers. “I want you to meet him.”

“‘Kay,” he says in a voice that tells Atsumu that his brother will soon fall asleep.

*

Atsumu brings Osamu to the mountain the next day, who looks around cautiously as they go up the steps together. The stone steps up the mountain are old and steep, weeds growing through the cracks of the moss covered rocks, stone lanterns that clearly haven’t been cleaned or maintained for a very long time line them on either side. There’s a constant chirp of cicadas around them, birds that flock from the trees to the sky, the sound of a distant river that flows nearby.

Atsumu follows the path that Kiyoomi walked him through yesterday; up the steps, turn to the left, on the dirt road, through the bushes towards the creek where he had that fateful encounter. He doesn’t know why he thinks Kiyoomi might be here but he does it anyway. They wait by the creek and for hours, nothing happens.

Finally, Osamu sighs in frustration. “‘M bored, ‘Tsumu. Can we go back to grandma’s house?”

Atsumu pouts. “But I want you to meet Kiyoomi.”

“He’s probably back at home. Did you even tell him to meet you here?”

Atsumu considers yesterday’s events in their entirety. “No,” he says slowly.

His brother throws his head back in laughter. “You’re such an idiot, Atsumu. Then he’s probably at home or somethin’.”

“I think he lives here though.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense,” Osamu replies, frowning. “Are you sure you even met him?”

Atsumu stares at him. He feels rage start to build in his chest, hotter than it was yesterday when Osamu said that they weren’t actually brothers. “I didn’t imagine him!” he spits.

“I didn’t say that—”

“You meant it though!” Atsumu says through gritted teeth.

Assessing the situation and probably not wanting a repeat of yesterday’s fight, Osamu sighs. “Okay, fine. I just think it’s weird. But if ya believe that you met him then I believe you.” He holds Atsumu’s hand. “Let’s go home, ‘Tsumu. It’s getting late.”

They walk back down the mountain, down the old steps that seem like they might give out any second now. The grass that grows around them indicate that nothing has changed since they came earlier in the afternoon. Despite his brother being right beside him, Atsumu feels lonely. At the bottom of the steps, he has that urge again—the urge to turn around and peep at the figure he knows is watching him. He looks back, and up the steps, he sees a boy in a yukata and a white weasel mask that covers his entire face waving goodbye at him as Osamu drags him back to the sanctuary of reality.

*

The next time Atsumu visits the forest, he finds Kiyoomi by the creek. He came alone this time because Osamu said that he doesn’t want to sit in the forest doing nothing for hours on end again so Atsumu conceded. He still thinks they should meet though.

When he walks through the thicket of the trees and sees the familiar mop of curly black hair and the yellow yukata, Atsumu lets out a breath. The sun is shining on the boy, basking him in a bright light that Atsumu pays close attention to. Still, he hasn’t exactly wrapped his head around Kiyoomi being a _yokai._ His eyes follow the outline of Kiyoomi’s body, trying to see if the light goes through him. It doesn’t. He bathes in the light instead, shining so bright that Atsumu wonders if the source of light is actually the boy by the creek himself. 

“How come you didn’t show up last time?” he asks suddenly and sees how Kiyoomi jumps, surprised at the silence being broken.

Kiyoomi turns his head slightly towards Atsumu and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You’re weird, Kiyoomi,” Atsumu says, sitting beside him.

“That’s why I didn’t want to come out.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, sheesh!” Atsumu leans back, his arms stretched out on the grass behind him. He grabs fistfuls. 

Kiyoomi shifts, drawing his knees towards his chest and resting his head here. “I don’t like meeting other people. What if they touch me?” _I don’t want to disappear_ are words that he doesn’t say.

“Well, I don’t want you to disappear,” Atsumu whispers.

“I know.” Kiyoomi’s grip around his legs tightens. He looks like a normal boy like this. “You told me that already.”

Atsumu can almost hear a smile playing on Kiyoomi’s lips. “Then I’m going to say it again; I don’t want you to disappear, Kiyoomi!” He only gets a hum in response but he gladly takes it anyway.

They fall quiet, watching the water as it flows through the creek in front of them. For some reason, Atsumu feels a desire to jump into the water. He voices this desire out only for Kiyoomi to shake his head.

“Your clothes will get dirty,” he says, voice even.

“Next time then?” Atsumu asks, to which the boy besides him nods.

They sit in comfortable silence again, no words shared between them as they watch the rest of the world go through life without them. The sky starts to turn redder, the cicadas beginning to hush, the wind around them only blows softly against Atsumu’s cheeks. 

“Say, Kiyoomi,” Atsumu starts.

“Hm?”

“You said you’re scared of humans, right?” Kiyoomi nods. “Are you okay with me?”

Kiyoomi turns to him, the mask hiding his expression under it but Atsumu would like to think that his brows are furrowed in deep thought. He wishes that Kiyoomi thinks deeply about him like he does of the other.

“Yeah,” the boy whispers. “You’re okay.”

And Atsumu grins in reply. “Let’s take it one step at a time then, Kiyoomi. I want ya to meet my brother. You’ll like him!” And then after a pause, he adds, “He’s not as fun as me, though.”

Kiyoomi scoffs, clearly finding Atsumu ridiculous. “Yesterday,” he says, “Your brother called you ‘’Tsumu’, right?”

“Yup! ‘S my nickname. I call him ‘’Samu’.”

“Oh.”

Atsumu furrows his brows at Kiyoomi’s placid reaction. He wonders if Kiyoomi finds it strange, and then, “Do you have a nickname, Kiyoomi?”

The boy shakes his head. “No, I’ve only ever been called the name I was given.”

Atsumu ponders on this for a while, a hand resting on his chin, before he says, “Then, is it okay if you’re called a name I give to you, too? How about ‘Omi’? It’s nice, right?”

Kiyoomi tilts his head at this, seemingly confused at the sudden gesture and Atsumu starts to get nervous. What if Kiyoomi doesn’t see him as someone close enough to just give him a nickname? Does Kiyoomi not see him as a friend? The beating of his heart starts to quicken its pace and Atsumu wonders why he’s getting so nervous over a nickname. It’s silly, isn’t it? But before he can descend into a worse panic, Kiyoomi speaks up.

“Okay,” he says before turning to face forward.

Kiyoomi doesn’t see the way Atsumu’s ears burn red or how his palms start to sweat upon their small agreement. It was nothing, really—a promise with no real consequence that makes Atsumu feel like the entire world around him just shifted.

* * *

_I’ll be waiting here till the stars fall out_ _  
__Of the sky_

* * *

Atsumu is climbing up the steps of the shrine when he sees Kiyoomi but the boy isn’t alone this time, there’s an older woman with him. She’s also dressed in a yukata but white in colour, a traditional mask shaped like a fox covers her entire face, long dark hair tied up in a neat bun. She places a hand on Kiyoomi’s shoulder and the boy, while his face isn’t visible, looks disheartened, his head bowed down low in shame. Atsumu knows that he isn’t supposed to see this so he goes to hide behind one of the lanterns, his hands on the moss covered stone as he tries to listen closely to what they’re saying.

“Kiyoomi, you know it’s dangerous,” the woman says, her movements so elegant she seems to be flowing with the wind.

“I know…”

“Look at you,” she says, placing a hand in his hair, carding her fingers through the strands. “You’re not going to be my little boy for much longer.”

“Don’t say that.” Kiyoomi seems to grimace, his hands start holding onto his sleeves tightly, just like he did when he and Atsumu met. It must be a nervous habit. Then Kiyoomi says something that he can’t quite hear.

Atsumu makes a move to get closer but there’s a loud snap. He cringes as he looks down at the twig he stepped on and looks back up to see that the woman is now gone. Kiyoomi stares at him, the blank expression on the mask and the two holes where the eyes should be, burn through Atsumu’s entire body. He feels guilty now that he eavesdropped but his tongue starts to weigh down his mouth, his throat scratchy like sandpaper and he doesn’t know what to say.

Kiyoomi turns around and heads up the stairs, not going through that dirt path towards the creek like they always do, but for some reason, it feels like the boy is asking Atsumu to follow him, so he does.

At the top of the steps, Atsumu finds himself in front of an old shrine. Like the rest of the steps and the stone lanterns, it’s clearly old. The gate that should have given Atsumu the name of this shrine has faded, the building itself looks to be untouched for years. Still, there are _omikuji_ tied on the strings at the posts near the shrine, fortunes and prayers of the past that Atsumu wonders have ever been fulfilled. Kiyoomi stands in front of the shrine, upset and as quiet as ever, and Atsumu can’t stand it anymore.

“Was that your mom, Omi-kun?” Atsumu asks.

Kiyoomi pauses for a beat as if mulling over the concept before shaking his head. “No, she’s not. I don’t have a mother. Or family.”

“What! You’re so lucky,” Atsumu whines, thinking back to his constant quarreling with Osamu, and his parents often misunderstanding him. “At least ya don’t have an annoying brother like I do.”

The boy in front of him tilts his head. “It looked like you’re the annoying brother, though.”

“Why, you!” Atsumu says, making a move to smack Kiyoomi on the shoulder before he stops midway, remembering their predicament. Kiyoomi flinches at the sudden movement, his head turned towards Atsumu’s hand that’s only inches away from his shoulder. Atsumu quickly takes his hand away, gripping it behind his back and bowing his head ever so slightly as if to say ‘I’m sorry’.

Kiyoomi sighs. “I think it’s good you have a brother, though. At the very least, you don’t get lonely.”

“Do you get lonely?” Atsumu asks, his eyebrows disappearing under his hair.

“Sometimes,” Kiyoomi says, crossing his arms over his chest, a move of protection against Atsumu doesn’t know what. Kiyoomi does this sometimes; he makes himself small, curling up into his body in intense discomfort and fear, holding onto himself to make sure that he exists, like he’s afraid of being hunted, like he’s afraid of vanishing into thin air.

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” Atsumu huffs, watching the way Kiyoomi’s body tightens. “I’m here with ya, ain’t I?”

The boy’s arms loosen and fall on either side of his body as he stares at Atsumu. At least, Atsumu _thinks_ he’s staring.

The wind up on the summit is stronger, blowing Kiyoomi’s dark curls in odd directions, the bells of the shrine tinkle lightly in the breeze and the sound of it all rings in Atsumu’s ears, almost thunderous in the apparent silence between them.

“You’re planning on staying with me?” Kiyoomi asks.

“I’m your friend,” Atsumu answers. That in itself is enough reason for Atsumu to stay. “I promise I’ll visit ya anytime I can. At least durin’ the summer.”

“That would be nice,” the boy in the yellow yukata mutters. And then after a while, he says, “I’d like to meet your brother, Atsumu.”

Atsumu can’t help the happiness that wells up inside of him, a bubble that rapidly grows and is about to burst. “You will?” Atsumu asks excitedly.

And Kiyoomi nods.

*

A week passes when Atsumu drags Osamu back up the steps of the shrine to the latter’s complaints.

“‘Tsumu, why’re you bringin’ me up here again? Wasn’t once enough?” his brother asks, though he still doesn’t just run down the steps now that Atsumu has let go of his hand. “I’m tired!”

Atsumu groans. “Ugh! I told you! Kiyoomi wants to meet you. Now shut your trap, you’re scarin’ away the birds,” he says, already regretting letting go of his brother. They would have gotten up the steps faster if it wasn’t for Osamu’s whining.

“Who cares about the stupid birds,” his brother replies evenly and Atsumu is about to whip around to give him a piece of his mind when he sees the way Osamu’s eyes widen. He’s looking at something behind Atsumu and now he’s painfully aware that someone is standing close to them. He turns around, only to be met face-to-face—well, face-to-mask—with the boy of the hour: Kiyoomi.

Atsumu can’t help the grin that stretches across his face. “Omi-omi, you’re here!” he says, a little louder than necessary but Kiyoomi doesn’t look like he minds.

Kiyoomi stares at them, his head tilting in curiosity. Osamu, in turn, stares back at him, his eyes seem to shake as he brings a hand to tug on the sleeve of Atsumu’s t-shirt. “What should I do?” he asks in a hushed voice, though they both know that Kiyoomi can clearly hear them.

“Say ‘hi!’. You’re bein’ rude, ya scrub,” Atsumu whispers back.

“You’re both being pretty rude, actually,” Kiyoomi’s voice cuts through their small conversation. And when the boys turn their head to the source of the interruption, all they can do is laugh.

The days of the summer of their eighth year are soon filled with the company of each other; climbing up the trees or hiding in them in a game of hide and seek, running in the forest clearing that Kiyoomi brings them to with their handmade kites that barely touch the sky, but most of the time, they play in the creek. Just like today.

They’re focussed on trying to catch fish in the stream, feet bare in the water as they wait for the fish to swim by so that they can catch them with their traps. The water is cool around Atsumu’s feet, a contrast to the heat of the sun on his back. Kiyoomi has the sleeves of his yukata rolled up, exposing his pale arms that Atsumu discovers for the first time are littered sparsely with dots.

“You have stars on your arms, Omi!” he says excitedly.

Osamu rolls his eyes. “They’re moles, dummy.”

“Who asked you!” Atsumu snaps back.

“They’re not constellations,” Kiyoomi says quietly. Well, Atsumu knew that already and is now realising how stupid he sounded earlier. Kiyoomi sets his trap down and walks closer to the two brothers. “It’s an elephant,” he mumbles before pinching his skin between two moles; the dots turning into eyes and the pinched skin resembling a trunk.

The brothers are stunned.

“Kiyoomi-kun,” Osamu starts. “Did’ja just-”

“Omi-omi, did’ja just make a joke?!” Atsumu finishes.

At this, Kiyoomi drops his hand and turns away. The colour red starts to creep up the boy’s neck, even his ears seem to turn pink, the only indication that Kiyoomi is blushing in embarrassment. Atsumu wishes that he could see his face right now.

_Cute._

All Atsumu can think of is the fact that Kiyoomi is capable of being cute.

*

Sometimes the days they spend together are fun. Other times, Atsumu finds his heart in constricting anger when he sees Osamu and Kiyoomi get along so well. He feels bad when this happens because he was the one who wanted his brother and his new friend to be friends, so it doesn’t make sense for him to hate it when they are. Still, he feels that anger inside him bubbling from the base of his stomach, all the way up to his chest, gasping in hot anxiety. He’s weighed down, like his bones are made of lead. He hates this.

He hates the way Osamu laughs while talking to Kiyoomi without him involved in the conversation. What’s so funny anyway? Kiyoomi has never really made a joke when he’s alone with Atsumu. They’re laughing again, by the creek, seemingly unaware of the fact that Atsumu is there watching them. And then he sees it, the clap of Osamu’s hand on Kiyoomi’s shoulder. He sees it, and then sees red, and then his feet take him right to them.

“Stop bullyin’, Omi!” he yells at his brother, remembering the way Kiyoomi flinched when he tried to do that once before at the shrine.

“What are you talkin’ about, stupid?” Osamu drawls out the last word, his eyebrows knitted together on his forehead in confusion. And Atsumu feels that anger rising like bile now.

“Don’t touch him! He doesn’t like bein’ touched!” It’s in the back of his throat.

“Oh yeah? He said it was fine as long as I’m not touchin’ him directly. Right, Kiyoomi-kun?” 

Kiyoomi looks at both brothers on either side, uncomfortable, before he nods once.

“Maybe, he just doesn’t trust _you_ to be careful, ‘Tsumu,” his brother says, not realising the weight of his words.

And then the venom is on the tip of Atsumu’s tongue. “Well sorry for bein’ utterly _useless_ to both of you!”

Atsumu doesn’t know where he’s going as long as he’s running. He vaguely remembers hearing a voice yelling his name, a voice that suspiciously resembled Kiyomi’s, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to look at the boy anymore, his body doesn’t even want to be in the same vicinity anymore. He’s angry. Atsumu is so angry.

Of course Kiyoomi would prefer Osamu. Everyone always prefers Osamu. He’s the well spoken, responsible and kind brother. He’s not the brash, loud or one-track minded boy Atsumu is.

Atsumu is eight years old, and he is lost in the forest.

Again.

He’s too tired to even panic. Atsumu sits on the ground, face in his hands and just cries. Cries at his anger, at his stupid decisions, at being a second choice to the friend that he made _first._

“Atsumu?” he hears a voice whisper. It’s not Osamu, it’s worse than that.

He hears footsteps drawing closer, feet padding onto the grass, the occasional crunch of the leaves before Kiyoomi sits down in front of him, careful to leave space so that they don’t touch. A glass barrier between them.

“Atsumu, what’s wrong?” he asks in a gentle voice.

Atsumu keeps his face in his hands, refusing to look at the boy sitting in front of him. He hates it. He hates that despite everything, Kiyoomi comes looking for him like he should, like Atsumu takes priority. Everything is wrong. And it starts with Atsumu.

“‘S nothin’,” Atsumu sniffles.

“It’s not nothing. You had me worried there.”

He hates this. He hates _feeling_ like this.

“Mine,” he manages to say through his tears.

“What did you say?”

Atsumu finally looks up, and looks at Kiyoomi with his wet, tear-stricken face, hoping that the boy is looking at him with the same kind of expression, just so he knows how much pain he’s caused. “You’re mine!” he yells.

Kiyoomi inches back slightly at his outburst and Atsumu regrets it immediately, all these dark thoughts and unreasonable wants. He hates this so much. He’s ruining everything.

“I thought you wanted me to be Osamu’s friend,” Kiyoomi says, tilting his head.

“Yeah, but now you two are best friends. Leavin’ me out and everythin’. Why don’t you just go back to your new best friend? You like him better, don’t you?” He knows he sounds ridiculous, but the words leave his mouth regardless, bitter and unrelenting.

“What are you talking about?”

“All my life I’ve had to share with Osamu. Clothes, toys, hobbies,” Atsumu confesses. “Sometimes we even had to share friends. But I don’t wanna do that now. I don’t wanna share _you._ You’re mine.”

A beat.

“You’re being stupid, Atsumu.”

He knows that, too. He knows all too well that he’s being stupid, and selfish, and jealous. 

“And I am,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu stares at him, not comprehending the words. And when he doesn’t say anything, Kiyoomi looks down at his hands as if they’re suddenly the most interesting thing in the world right now. He clenches them into fists, and then so quiet that Atsumu could have almost missed it,

“I _am_ yours.”

Then Kiyoomi stands up, picks up a stick he finds nearby and holds it out in front of Atsumu.

Atsumu takes it.

  
  


“‘Tsumu,” Osamu calls him later that night. They’re in separate futons this time, Atsumu didn’t feel like sharing. “I’m sorry for earlier.”

Atsumu doesn’t say anything.

“I feel like I keep makin’ you upset these days. Kiyoomi-kun got mad at me earlier for what I said,” his brother explains and this sticks in his ear.

“He did?” Atsumu asks, finally turning towards his brother.

Osamu nods. “Yup. Said he didn’t want to be my friend if all I’m doin’ is bein’ mean to you.”

And Atsumu laughs. It sounds like what Kiyoomi would say. Slowly, he stretches out a hand towards the floor between them. A hitch in someone’s breath. Osamu holds it.

“Do you like Kiyoomi-kun, ‘Tsumu?” Osamu asks after a while.

Atsumu draws his eyebrows close. “‘Course I do! He’s my friend.”

Osamu sighs, his grip getting tighter. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

*

When Atsumu is nine years old, he gifts Kiyoomi a pair of gloves.

At first, the boy doesn’t understand why he’s receiving such a gift but then Atsumu practically begs him to put it on, much to Kiyoomi’s protests.

“It’s hot, Atsumu—”

“I don’t care if it’s boilin’ right now, Omi. Just put it on!” he urges.

And Kiyoomi does, albeit really cautiously to the point where Atsumu is almost certain that he’s raising an eyebrow at him. Once Kiyoomi is done, he slowly lifts his hands up to show Atsumy that he has, in fact, worn it.

“What’s this for?” Kiyoomi asks.

“For this,” Atsumu says before reaching out and slipping his fingers through Kiyoomi’s hand.

Kiyoomi stares at their where they joined, linked, a perfect fit like the final piece in a puzzle, and then at the dumb grin on Atsumu’s face before he yanks his hand away and bolts out of the clearing, Atsumu chasing behind him and yelling out apologies.

*

On the first day of summer vacation in his tenth year, he visits the forest like he always does, climbing up the steps to the shrine and waiting for his friend there like a prayer that he wants to be fulfilled. But it never is.

Kiyoomi doesn’t come.

In fact, Kiyoomi doesn’t come for a whole week and Atsumu is starting to get worried. Is Kiyoomi really ignoring him like this? Atsumu knows that the boy is around, sometimes he feels like he’s being watched in the forest. The other yokai that Kiyoomi told him are there don’t bother with humans, they usually leave them alone. But Kiyoomi? Kiyoomi has always been the one who approaches him first.

When Atsumu does find him one day, Kiyoomi has his back to him, instead he faces the bells of the shrine that ring lightly in the wind.

“Are you always gonna be a no-show?” he asks, gripping the railings of the shrine tightly, trying to reign in the irritation in his voice. He hopes it works because he knows he’s being unfair; Kiyoomi almost always shows up. He knows he’s being unfair but he can’t help it.

“I got told off,” Kiyoomi says plainly.

“Told off by who? For what?” Atsumu asks, curious now.

Kiyoomi turns to him and for the first time since they started speaking, Atsumu notices that he’s not wearing the gloves anymore. They must be tight for him now. Atsumu should get him a new pair next year, they should be around the same size.

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says, placing a hand over Atsumu’s sleeve, careful not to touch his skin. “The other yokai are worried about me. The more I spend time with you, the more I feel like I’m losing.”

“What are you losin’?”

And then quietly. “Myself.”

Something inside Atsumu is slowly unravelling. He knows that Kiyoomi’s words should be taken at face value given how blunt he is most of the time but for some reason, Atsumu feels like there’s more to it here. And it makes his chest ache, unsure if it’s good or bad. So Atsumu does what he always does when he panics.

“You’re so prickly, Omi-kun. Like a sea urchin,” Atsumu teases.

But Kiyoomi doesn’t laugh at his joke. Instead, he lets go of Atsumu and whispers, “I’ve never been to the sea before.”

Atsumu stares at him, mouth agape. “But it’s so near!”

His grandmother lives in a fishing village. Atsumu and Osamu are supposed to spend their summer holiday here because their parents are busy with work. The first time they ever came here, they visited the beach with their grandmother. The ocean is honestly his favourite place in the world. He loves the feel of the sand at his feet as the water gently tickles them in small, calming waves, and each wave that hits his feet is different. Osamu and he would always build sandcastles, but sometimes they would fight and draw lines. Boundaries. Something as flaky and crumbly as their anger that would soon subside by the calm lull of the waves that could hush him to sleep. 

The waves. He loves swimming in the water, chasing the horizon in front of him, the Sun that dims the sky red from a clear blue. The ocean brings a promise of change.

“I can take you there,” Atsumu offers. Even now, there are gulls flying over the trees, the mountain close to the shoreline.

Kiyoomi shakes his head. “You can’t.” 

“Why not? If you’re afraid of sneaking out, I’m great at it!”

“I’m tied to the forest. I’m not allowed to leave.”

“You’re tied to it?” Kiyoomi nods and Atsumu imagines this Kiyoomi, a boy around his age, pale with dark curls, otherworldly in nature with a rare bright laugh, having a shackle around his ankle. He feels something coil in the pit of his stomach. “What would happen if you leave?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t say anything but his silence already answers the question.

*

By a stroke of pure luck or pure disaster, Atsumu is looking at Kiyoomi’s unmasked face for the very first time.

He’s late today, the train to the seaside town catching a delay when they least expected it to. There was no way to contact Kiyoomi and tell him that he’s going to be late this time. Sometimes, Atsumu wishes that Kiyoomi was a normal boy or that he was a yokai too, just so that he could spend more time with him, and talk to him, and hold his hand—just like how normal twelve year olds would. At least, he _thinks_ Kiyoomi is twelve years old. They look to be around the same age, though the other boy claims to have been alive for slightly longer.

Atsumu scoffs. Kiyoomi is still a boy anyway but sometimes, he forgets what kind of boy the other is. The physical barrier between them in the shape of a mask is the only thing that reminds Atsumu that Kiyoomi is a little different, no matter how much he resembles the norm.

And yet, here he is, staring at Kiyoomi’s sleeping face. The yokai’s body is splayed out on the grass, one hand beside his head while the other is wrapped around his middle, the weasel mask placed beside him in his slumber.

Atsumu can’t help but to stare. He stares at Kiyoomi’s pale face, eyes traveling from his small chin to his pink lips to his straight nose, his long eyelashes that fan his cheeks and then finally, the two moles stacked on top of each other above his right eyebrow.

Kiyoomi is the most beautiful being Atsumu has ever seen and he can’t help but stare.

* * *

_I was far too young_ _  
__To know you’re worth more than the moon and the sun_

* * *

“What’s school like?” Kiyoomi asks him one day.

“Hm?” Asumu hums. “School?”

“Yes.”

Atsumu is seventeen years old now, sitting side by side with Kiyoomi by the creek. Some things have stayed the same: Kiyoomi is still wearing a yukata, his face hidden behind a mask, his hair just as curly as it was the day they met, but he’s different in other ways, too. He stands taller—a couple of inches taller than Atsumu himself—, his shoulders are broad now too, his voice a little lower than his own. Sometimes, when Kiyoomi draws the sleeves of his yukata, Atsumu sees the strong arms hidden underneath. He wonders what Kiyoomi does when it’s not the forty days they spend together during the year. He’s asked once but Kiyoomi only shrugged and said ‘the usual’. What _is_ the usual for someone like Kiyoomi?

“Atsumu?” a voice, snapping Atsumu out of his reverie.

“Huh?”

Kiyoomi turns to him, expression hidden if not for the way his body curls forward, resting his head on his knees. “School. How is it?” he asks, though he doesn’t seem at all interested. He looks tired like this.

“Oh? Well, ‘s alright I guess.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah.” And then Atsumu grins. “I’ll have you know, I’m _really_ popular in school.”

Kiyoomi sits up straight, and inches ever so slightly to him. “You are?”

“Yup. For Valentine’s day, I got a load of chocolate. Had to ask ‘Samu to carry ‘em for me.” Atsumu smirks.

“Ew.”

Atsumu can almost imagine the dumbstruck look on Kiyoomi’s face as the other stares at him. It makes him want to tease him, so he does.

“You seem surprised,” Atsumu coos.

Kiyoomi shakes his head. “I’m not surprised. You’re not exactly ugly,” his tone flat.

Atsumu laughs, trying to hide the burning of his ears. “Can’t you compliment me without makin’ it an insult?”

“How was that an insult? I said you aren’t ugly,” Kiyoomi huffs. If he did this to anyone else, people would think he’s joking but Atsumu has known him long enough to know that Kiyoomi is completely serious. And that’s endearing to Atsumu for some reason.

“You need to learn some social skills, Omi-kun.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Wow, who taught you how to curse like that.”

“You did, idiot.”

“And this is why you can’t live without me.”

Atsumu must have said something wrong because Kiyoomi stands up abruptly, patting away the grass on his yukata. He turns his head to face the creek, as if he doesn’t want Atsumu to see the expression on his face. It’s strange. He shies away even when there is nothing to see. It’s been years since Atsumu has seen the yokai’s face. Kiyoomi doesn’t know that he did, even if he does know, he pretends he doesn’t. Atsumu is grateful though, their relationship is like that—something all encompassing and runs deep, existing within the marrow of his bones, as much a part of himself as the moles he knows are on Kiyoomi’s forehead, but even then, the tiniest mishap can tether it. It can rip like the cheapest of fabric, much like the cloth that occasionally binds them together when they walk to the forest side by side.

“Omi?” 

“It’s getting late. Don’t you have to go home soon,” Kiyoomi asks, though it comes out flatly like a statement, a line drawn within the sand, a clear divide that’s so fragile it will collapse by one wash of the waves.

“I’m sorry—”

Kiyoomi finally turns to him. “Stop being so dramatic, ‘Tsumu.”

Atsumu could almost hear him rolling his eyes so he laughs. “You’re the one who’s bein’ so prickly.”

“It’s the truth, anyway.” Atsumu doesn’t really know what Kiyoomi is referring to and he doesn’t dwell on it for too long either. He stands up, letting the other lead the way out of the clearing, towards the dirt path, down the steps of the shrine, just like he’s always had before. It almost feels like he’s eight years old again.

But something _has_ shifted.

They’ve stopped using the stick years ago. Atsumu doesn’t get lost in the forest anymore, but they’re still attached to each other one way or another. And much like excuses, they don’t find an actual explanation as to why. Atsumu looks down to his wrist that’s tied with a white cloth, his eyes travel along it until he sees another, mirrored in front of him. It’s strange to think of his mirror as someone who isn’t his own twin. He catches up to the long strides of the other and looks to his side. Kiyoomi really did get tall. When they were children, the yokai was shorter than him. Atsumu can bet that he’s handsome, too. Sometimes he wishes he could see it again, but asking would mean that it’s not enough, asking would mean that he wants more than what Kiyoomi can give, asking would crumble whatever castle they’ve built in the sand.

Atsumu doesn’t want that so he ignores it.

He ignores the squeeze of his chest, the sweat that beads on his forehead, and the way he feels the gaze of the other on him.

“Atsumu.”

He looks up and Kiyoomi is facing him. The yokai tugs at the cloth between them, signaling that their time together for the day has ended. Atsumu doesn’t want to go back yet. Even a few more minutes is enough, though he knows he’ll end up missing the other anyway.

But Kiyoomi doesn’t seem like he wants to go either; he keeps his hands still as he watches Atsumu’s movement—or lack thereof. For some reason, it makes the heat rise in his cheeks.

“What is it?” Kiyoomi asks, voice as dull as the expression on his mask.

“Nothin’,” Atsumu answers, biting back the smile that threatens to bloom on his face. 

Kiyoomi looks down, fiddling with his end of the cloth, but still he doesn’t take it off no matter how much it loosens between them.

“Atsumu,” he says again.

“Hm?”

Gripping on the sleeves of his yukata, much like he did when he was a child, Kiyoomi finally looks up and says, “Do you want to go somewhere with me?”

  
  


Atsumu asks Osamu to help him. He slides his hands into the dark blue sleeves that are patterned with gold, wrapping the right side over his body before wrapping the left side over. He keeps the garment in place, waiting for his brother to tie the obi around his hips. 

“‘M not even gonna ask why you’re dressed up like this,” Osamu says behind him, tying the black sash in a tight knot, keeping the yukata in place.

“I don’t really know why to begin with,” Atsumu quietly retorts, earning a scoff from his brother.

“You should stop playin’ dumb, y’know. Someone’s feelin’s are gonna get hurt if you two go on like this.” Osamu walks out and stands at the desk in front of Atsumu, crossing his arms over his chest while examining his work before giving his brother a small smile and a nod. “Done. Though, your hair is still lookin’ like piss.”

“Omi liked it.”

“Kiyoomi-kun didn’t say that. I was there.”

“He likes yellow.”

“Not piss yellow.”

Atsumu scrunches up his face. “Can’t you live a day without bein’ a thorn in my back.”

Osamu laughs. “I’ll stop bein’ that when you stop bein’ an idiot.” He uncrosses his arms and grips on the edge of the desk as he leans against it, putting his weight there. The easy smile from before isn’t on his face anymore, instead it’s replaced with a knowing look, the same kind of look that makes Atsumu squeamish because his brother only gives him that look when he’s done something wrong.

“‘Tsumu,” he starts. Here we go. “When are you gonna tell Kiyoomi-kun?”

Atsumu has been dreading this. “I will.”

“Yeah, you said that before. ‘M askin’ when.” His brother’s eyebrows pinch together, the creases on his forehead deepening. “Don’t you think he deserves to know by now? It feels wrong to keep pretendin’.”

“‘Samu, you still have time to change and come with us, y’know.” 

Osamu squints at him. “You’re deflectin’ again. I know you made him a promise but we’re not kids anymore, ‘Tsumu. You know that and _he_ knows that.”

Atsumu laughs, high pitched and forced. “You’re so tense, ‘Samu. You should be careful; if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re worried about me.”

“‘Course I am. We’re brothers,” Osamu says, far more seriously than what Atsumu anticipated. It makes him feel weird, happy even, but he would never tell the asshole that.

“I should’ve eaten you in the womb,” Atsumu replies, dodging the book that flies in his direction.

  
  


_“When?”_

_“Tomorrow. After sundown.”_

_“Where?”_

_“Meet me at the steps.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Just be there.”_

Truthfully, in the near ten years Atsumu has known Kiyoomi, he’s never gone to the mountain at night. The sun setting has always been an indication that their time was up, a routine of some sorts. Atsumu isn’t really one for routine but that gave him comfort. It gave him an out when things started to look muddled.

It’s dark out tonight, the only light that illuminates his path is the faith glow of the moon above him. Clouds are starting the form, hiding the light source in wisps. _Is it going to rain tonight?_ Atsumu wonders.

He crosses the field in front of his grandmother’s home and makes his way towards the mountain. The only sounds he can hear are the shuffling of his own feet over the dirt and the low croaks of the frogs at the pond nearby. But all that seems to mellow out when compared to the beating of his own heart.

Atsumu is nervous. 

Is it stupid to think of this as a date? That’s what Osamu was implying the entire time he was getting ready but he doesn’t really know what to think of it. They’re just friends. Kiyoomi doesn’t even know what a date is, Atsumu thinks. He hopes, even. 

The kind of hope a teenager in denial would give himself so that he doesn’t shit his underwear when he sees Kiyoomi sitting at the base of the steps.

His head is turned upwards towards the sky, a hand holding his mask just above his face so that Atsumu can see that his features glowing blue in the moonlight. It’s moments like these that remind Atsumu that Kiyoomi isn’t human. Much like when he was basking in the sunlight as a child, Kiyoomi seems to glow brighter the more Atsumu approaches him. He was right; Kiyoomi _is_ handsome under the mask. All the features that Atsumu found beautiful as a twelve year old only managed to be more defined now that they’re both older. His thick eyebrows, long eyelashes, straight nose, the slight pout of his lips—all of it is familiar and foreign at the same time.

The sight of it almost punches the air out of Atsumu’s lungs. Kiyoomi is smiling at something, and Atsumu can't tell what it is, that is, until he sees them; small, blinking yellow lights that surround the sitting figure.

Fireflies.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu whispers as a greeting, expecting Kiyoomi to quickly put on the mask and hide his face.

He doesn’t.

Instead, Kiyoomi turns to him and for the first time since they met, their eyes lock onto each other without a barrier.

Atsumu learned in science class that at the center of the galaxy is a black hole, dark and looming, it sucks everything in to the point where even light can’t escape. Time works strangely in a black hole, mere seconds could be several years. He thinks differently—he used to liken Kiyoomi to the center of his solar system; the Sun that burns brightly in the middle of his chest, something whose gravitational pull is so strong that it ricochets the comet that is Atsumu’s entire existence back into orbit every time he goes off a little too far, but now he knows that he’s wrong. Kiyoomi’s pitch black eyes seem to resemble black holes more. Light is diminished, time is warped. The unknowns of the universe are kept in those two dark eyes that are staring at him. Senseless. 

“Atsumu, you’re here,” Kiyoomi says but then the corners of his lips fall ever so slightly. “How did you know it was me?”

Atsumu smiles, as normal as he can, ignoring the way it’s suddenly difficult to breathe. “Who else could it be?” he forces out a laugh, hoping it sounds like the usual.

Still not putting on his mask, Atsumu watches the way Kiyoomi’s eyes travel from his face downwards, inspecting his entire outfit. For some reason, he starts to feel shy. Is he being serious right now? It’s just Kiyoomi. Still, no matter how hard Atsumu wills it, his heart palpitations just don’t seem to let up, especially not when Kiyoomi is looking at him like _that._

“You look great,” he finally says after a while.

Atsumu can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. He’s grateful that it’s too dark to be able to see what he knows to be the pink dusted on them. Biting his lower lip, he responds, “So do you.”

God, he wishes that Kiyoomi would just put that mask back on now. At the very least, Atsumu could pretend that he wasn’t being looked at when there’s a physical barrier right between them.

But Kiyoomi, damn him, stands up and then, rather flatly, “Shall we go?”

Before Atsumu can respond, Kiyoomi hands him the mask.

“Put it on,” he says.

Atsumu eyes the familiar white mask, a mask that has been a staple in his childhood for as long as he can remember. And yet, it feels wrong. It’s not _his_ to wear. “What?”

Kiyoomi does that thing again, the thing where he tilts his head in thought before saying—as if he was aware of Atsumu’s internal struggle, “I’m not wearing it because I want you to wear it.”

Can yokais read minds? Atsumu doesn’t really know if he wants to find out. Still, he reaches out to grab it, realising too late that unbeknownst to him, his hand is shaking. Kiyoomi stares at his trembling fingers that grab hold of the mask only to frown.

In a voice so gentle that Atsumu feels like a dandelion being torn apart by a breeze in spring, Kiyoomi whispers, “Am I scary to you?”

No, he wants to say.

“Yes,” Atsumu says instead, the synapse between his tongue and his brain collapsing.

Atsumu’s whole body freezes.

Shit.

The frown on Kiyoomi’s face deepens. “Why?” he asks. He holds himself, arms wrapped around his body in protection. Like this, he looks small even though he’s taller than Atsumu. Kiyoomi is upset.

“N-no,” Atsumu stammers, feeling rocks plunging into his stomach. “It’s not that, I just. It’s new.”

“We’ve known each other since we were kids.”

“Well, I’ve never seen your face as a kid,” he lies, hoping that yokais can’t read minds after all but then the man in front of him shifts.

Kiyoomi looks up at him, a strange expression on his face; mouth in a tight line, his eyebrows pinched together on his forehead. Atsumu feels a bead of sweat fall down his back. Forget about being upset, Kiyoomi is _hurt._

Atsumu is about to beg for forgiveness when Kiyoomi's arms fall to his side, his expression softening. 

“The others know what I look like. They can’t know that a human will be in the midst. If you wear my mask, they won’t be able to tell as well.”

“The others?” Atsumu asks before-

Ah. The other yokai.

Wait.

“Where are we going?”

“A festival.”

Despite himself, Atsumu grins. “Wow Omi, are you takin’ me out on a date?” he wiggles his eyebrows the way he knows will annoy the other.

But Kiyoomi stares at him, clearly unamused. “Just put it on.”

Atsumu carefully ties the string around his head, the weight of the mask an unfamiliar feeling. Surprisingly, he can see quite clearly through the small holes for his eyes. He wishes his face didn’t have to sweat though, the summer heat only mildly chilling over during the night. How did Kiyoomi do this on a daily basis?

The apparent festival is a little further into the forest than what Atsumu is used to. There are clear rules that Kiyoomi made for him and Osamu over the years, simple things like _don’t go past that tree on the other side of the clearing_ or _the shrine is the highest point you should climb._ Sometimes they include vague warnings like _whatever you do, don’t cross to the other side of the river._ But right now, Kiyoomi is leading him, hands tied between them with a cloth, across that very same clearing through the thicket of the trees he’s never dared to set foot in. Breaking rules has always been second nature to him, but Atsumu suddenly feels like he’s intruding into something a little more sacred, something he is unworthy of being part of. And it scares him.

No, it terrifies him.

 _Don’t cross to the other side of the river,_ he repeats like a mantra in his head.

It’s completely dark out here, but Kiyoomi leads them through without any difficulty, stepping lightly onto the paths he’s stepped on countless times before. For some reason, it makes Atsumu’s chest squeeze tightly. There’s a Kiyoomi that he doesn’t know, that he did not know, that he will probably never know. He has to tell him.

Before he can say anything, his foot catches on the root of a tree, falling forwards. But instead of the ground, he finds himself in the arms of something warm. He looks up.

When did Kiyoomi move so fast?

Kiyoomi grips his arms tightly, keeping him steady as he gets himself to stand up straight again. The other doesn’t look at him, opting to frown at something behind them. Through the fabric of the yukata, all Atsumu can feel is an undeniable heat, something that even midsummer couldn’t produce. Still, he tries to convince himself that the heat that rises to his face is due to the summer. A summer fever, he deduces.

“Be careful,” Kiyoomi hisses, face in an uncomfortable scrunch as the pressure on Atsumu’s arm disappears, turning towards the front again with a loud sigh. “The trees here are old, it’s easy for them to snatch you.”

“Snatch me?”

Saying nothing, the other nods his head back towards the root behind them. Atsumu follows his gaze and sees it: the root, as if having a mind of its own, falls back towards the ground in a loud snap.

What the fuck?

“Omi, get me out of here,” he whispers.

“I will. The festival is just through that brush.”

His hand on Kiyoomi’s sleeve clenches—when was he even holding him?—as he stares up at the boy. He can’t believe how tall the other has gotten.

“That’s not the problem,” Atsumu says harshly. “The tree is goin’ to eat me.”

Kiyoomi lets out a tired breath. “What tree do you know eats people?”

“What tree do _you_ know harrasses an innocent person?”

“Trust me, you’re thinking too highly of yourself there.”

“Fuck you. I am in distress.”

“No, you’re being dramatic.”

“A tree just attacked me!” he whisper-yells, afraid that other seemingly inanimate objects will hunt him down.

And Kiyoomi, the fucker, shrugs.

Does he not know that normally trees don’t move on their own?

“The tree isn’t the one who moved by the way,” the yokai suddenly says, still facing forward as they walk through the path. Atsumu is convinced yokais can read minds now. “It was the auntie that lived in the tree that moved it.”

“Auntie?”

“Chihiro-san likes to play tricks. But she’s harmless so you don’t need to worry about her.” He pauses before continuing, “As far as I know, she doesn’t eat dumb seventeen year old boys with yellow hair.” Is that a smirk on his face?

Atsumu frowns. “I thought you liked it.”

“Stop pouting,” the other replies, rolling his eyes. 

“You’re so mean, Omi-kun.”

Suddenly, Kiyoomi grabs his wrist, the only thing separating them is rippable fabric. “Stop touching your hair.” Was he? “It’s fine.”

“‘Fine’ doesn’t really encourage me, Omi-kun,” Atsumu says glumly, his hand falling to his side. Still the other’s hold on him doesn’t loosen.

“You’re so annoying.”

“And you’re takin’ me out on a date.”

Kiyoomi frowns. “You keep saying that. I never said it was.”

Atsumu arches up an eyebrow, but then he realises that Kiyoomi can’t see his face anyway. “Is it not?”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“You’re so confusing, Omi.”

“No, you’re just obtuse.”

They both know that’s not true but Atsumu decides to not press any further.

When they finally reach the festival, Atsumu can’t help the sharp intake of breath as he looks out at what’s in front of him. After being in darkness for so long, all Atsumu can see now is light, bright lights of the various stalls that are clumped together in the clearing. The smell of the food stalls waft through the air in a warm breeze, the laughter from the game stalls dance loudly through the gaps between the trees. Children are running around, men and women taking strolls through the night, all of which seem so normal that he has a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he’s the only human here. That is, until he sees a man with a tail.

Okay, so he’s definitely not human. But then Atsumu starts noticing the small things more and more; some of them wear masks, some of the yokai are actually not as human as they seem—forget about the tail, he swears he saw someone with cat ears talking rather animatedly with a dog who replies in coherent sentences. Actually, maybe Atsumu is high, or experiencing a very vivid fever dream. Maybe he hit his head.

“I don’t think you hit your head, not since we met up anyway,” a voice says beside him and Atsumu jumps.

Fuck. He said that out loud, didn’t he?

“You did.”

“Shut your trap, Omi-kun.”

“Hm,” he hums in response, always needing to have the last word.

Kiyoomi drags him to one of the food stalls, the smell of the _yakisoba_ making Atsumu’s stomach grumble. He’s hungrier than he thought he was.

“Is there anything else that you want?” Kiyoomi asks him, yakisoba in hand after he thanks the vendor.

“Hm? Well, desert would be nice,” he replies.

They buy some _ringo-ame_ and a few other snacks before sitting down a little further away from the rest of the festival so that Atsumu doesn’t come in contact with the others. Sakusa explains to him that not all yokai have an aversion to humans like he does, but some would definitely feel offended if a human snuck into their midst, even by invitation. 

Kiyoomi’s face still glows under the light but it’s warmer this time, more subdued. As Atsumu takes off the mask to eat the food, he can’t help but notice that the look in the boy’s eyes has changed from before.

“You’re lookin’ at me funny, Omi-kun.”

“Hm? Am I?” he says, voice soft, eyes slightly unfocussed.

Atsumu gulps. “Yeah. You are.”

“Do you hate it?”

“Not really. It just makes _me_ feel a little funny.”

Maybe Atsumu’s palms are starting to sweat, but he ignores it, slurping up the yakisoba like his life depends on it. Kiyoomi doesn’t eat, all he does is stare at Atsumu. He stares at Atsumu like how Atsumu imagines himself to look like when he stares at the other when he’s not looking: fond. It makes the pit in Atsumu’s stomach clench, a Mariana’s Trench of deep emotions and hidden secrets clamping shut at the mere _thought_ of being perceived.

“Omi-kun, I’m tryna eat here. So could you, y’know, stop starin’ at me like that?”

“What am I staring at you like?”

“Are we playing twenty questions or somethin’?”

Kiyoomi’s face shifts into genuine confusion. “What’s that?”

Atsumu laughs. “I forgot you’re weird.”

“Is that what you should say to someone who’s feeding you,” he says flatly. The question disappears into the depths of the night.

Atsumu takes a bite out of the ringo-ame. The crunch of it almost tiring his jaw, but he doesn’t mind. The caramel coat of the apple melts in his mouth and mixed with the juice creates only sweetness.

Kiyoomi also starts eating, but instead of biting it like Atsumu did, he sucks on it like it’s a lollipop. The red of the caramel tints his lips the same shade that of his flushed cheeks. Deep poison that Atsumu would gladly take a bite from. He tongue swipes over his mouth.

The summer heat must have gotten to him.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu starts once they’ve finished eating in silence. He puts the mask back on. “Walk with me?”

It’s not like they could do anything else with how they’re tied to each other with the cloth. Still, Kiyoomi nods anyway and stands up, following Atsumu through where they came from. Somehow they end up at the creek that became a childhood staple but he keeps walking, going past it towards the dirt path so that they meet the steps. But this time, instead of walking down, he climbs up towards the abandoned shrine.

It’s strange to see the place that should be familiar feel so foreign.

The shrine at night is unlike what it is during the daytime. When the sun shines onto the faded red paint, there’s something about this place that makes Atsumu feel warm, a sense of belonging. This shrine that holds the prayers and wishes of the past seems nothing but a mystery in the dead of night. Black, obsidian—much like the curls and the eyes of the boy beside him. And for the first time this whole night, Atsumu feels something else accompanying them: guilt.

“I’m sorry,” is all Atsumu can say. He turns to the other only to see a deep frown that mirrors his own.

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says under the canopy of the shrine. The wind doesn’t blow tonight, the chimes still. “What’s this all about?”

“I’m going to university next year.” It should be obvious, but nothing could be more obvious than Kiyoomi not being able to pick it up.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means that I’m going far away, for a long time. I don’t think I’ll be spending my summers here while I’m there,” Atsumu whispers, though there’s no one else here but them, he wishes it could still be kept a secret.

For a while, there is nothing but silence between them as Kiyoomi takes in the words. It’s suffocating. They’ve had silences between them before but nothing this thick and heavy, nothing that weighs his body down like being tied to an anchor and dropped into the ocean. Time feels like it has only passed for a few seconds and a few centuries at the same time. Time is warped when he looks into Kiyoomi’s eyes.

“So that’s it?” Kiyoomi finally says, shattering the quiet of the night. “You’re leaving.” _Me,_ Atsumu almost hears.

“Yes.”

“You promised—”

“—We were kids.”

“We still are!” Kiyoomi huffs, leering at him. Atsumu has never heard Kiyoomi raise his voice in the nine years that they’ve known each other. Another thing that is familiar and foreign when he looks at the face of the other. “You promised me,” he repeats. “You _promised_ me,” he says over and over again like saying it would change the course of their lives.

“Omi, I’ll try to come here whenever I can but you can’t possibly expect me to be here forever—”

“I don’t.” And despite everything, Kiyoomi laughs, the coldness of it makes him shiver in the mild heat. “But Atsumu, you seem to be forgetting something,” he says lifting their tied hands, pointing at the cloth between them. “When this is all said and done, you can take off this cloth and leave the forest to never come back. I can’t. I’m tied here in a way that I’ll never be tied to you. I’m the one who will be here forever.”

“Omi—”

“Every year, when the sun is at its peak, I’m the one who waits and I’m the one who is left behind,” he spits before finally untying the cloth, practically ripping it from his wrist.

Atsumu’s hand falls to his side like dead weight.

Suddenly, it’s turned cold. The wind at the summit picks up the pace. Dead leaves on the cobblestone start to move as the sound of their scratching fills the air. The clouds have almost completely covered the moon now, shrouding them in darkness.

Atsumu was right, it _is_ going to rain tonight.

“Kiyoomi,” he whispers. “Why are you acting like this is the last time we’ll ever see each other?”

Silence.

“I don’t want us to be angry if this is the last time.” 

A line is drawn clearly onto the sand. A river flows between them, not to be waded across. A mask that obscures them from ever seeing eye-to-eye.

_Don’t cross to the other side._

It crumbles; the sandcastle that they’ve built so far away from the ocean is being pulled into the water to collapse.

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says, voice barely a whisper, “I want to be alone now.”

“Omi, wait—”

But Kiyoomi is already turning around, walking away to disappear into the trees of the forest, into where the light of the moon won’t be able to reach him. A black hole. He’s going where he can’t glow blue under the moonlight, where the dim yellow lights of the fireflies from before won’t be able to cast an otherworldly spell on his figure—he’s going where Atsumu can’t follow.

Panic shoots up Atsumu’s body like electricity, rendering him motionless. He needs to move but his feet stay planted to the ground.

“Omi,” he whispers but to no avail.

_Boom._

The sound of the thunder deafens his eardrums and the lighting that follows splits the sky in two. He hadn’t even realised it was raining until now, the way his yukata is soaked against his back. Still, Kiyoomi is ahead of him, moving so swiftly it’s almost like he’s gliding away, like he’s being taken by the wind just right out of Atsumu’s reach. He forces his feet to move. Not even the heavy rain can compare to the storm that’s brewing inside of his chest. He trembles at the sensation—violent, wild, crazed—as he takes a step forward, chasing after the eye of the storm.

“Omi!” he says again, louder this time, hoping that the other boy can hear him. He can’t stop panting, it’s like he’s running a marathon even though it can’t have been more than a few meters.

Even when the rain obstructs his vision, blearily, he sees the way Kiyoomi stops, slowly turning around—is it slow? Or is time just moving a second in the span of an hour?—and Atsumu does the only thing he can; he reaches out a hand.

“Kiyoomi!” Finally, he has a hold of him.

Kiyoomi stares at him then, eyes wide and bloodshot like he had just been crying. And Atsumu stares back at those panic-stricken eyes with even more confusion. Kiyoomi is looking at him with so much grief that he wonders if the world had finally collapsed in on itself, if the world had been sucked into the black hole.

“A-Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says. “Let go.”

Atsumu looks down and finally understands.

He has a hand around Kiyoomi’s forearm, skin on skin. A broken rule. He quickly lets go but his heart still drops into his stomach. Suddenly all he can think about are sticks and a white cloth, careful precautions that are meant to be the last defence against their own personal rapture. But sticks can snap and cloth can rip.

A sand castle can be washed away and rivers can be dried up. Nothing lasts forever but time, and time seems to be moving at the pace of his own hammering heart as he allows what he has done to finally sink into his bones.

He’s made a mistake, one that can’t be fixed with _I’m sorry’s_ or _forgive me’s_. Atsumu knows he can’t even ask for that when he sees the look of Kiyoomi’s face.

Fear.

The other is shaking, his whole body seems to shiver and Atsumu knows it’s not because of the cold.

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says again, “I feel strange.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Atsumu tries to smile. “You’re fine.”

But Kiyoomi shakes his head. “No, I-I think something’s wrong. I feel… I feel...” he trails off, wrapping his arms around his body, the grip on his shoulders tight. He looks like he did when they were kids.

The rain on Atsumu’s back lessens, the shower ending as suddenly as it started. 

He takes a step forward only for Kiyoomi to take a step back.

“Omi—”

“Stay back!” It comes out strangled and wet. The rain still coats his face. The yokai huffs out the next words, “D-don’t come any closer. _Please,_ ” Kiyoomi begs, his lower lip quivering.

Stupidly, Atsumu reaches out a hand.

“Didn’t I say to step back! Do you want me gone?” Black eyes lock onto his own and Atsumu realises something; the wetness of Kiyoomi’s face isn't from the rain, it’s from his tears.

“Please, let me help you—”

“Don’t. I just,” he pauses, “It just feels so weird. I feel sick, ‘Tsumu.”

Kiyoomi lifts a hand and stares at it, squinting at his fingers. Atsumu follows his gaze, an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach and then he sees them; fireflies.

At the tips of Kiyoomi’s fingers, fireflies suddenly appear, bright yellow lights that circle his hand. Atsumu blinks.

Kiyoomi has his hand clenched as he lets out a sob. “Atsumu,” he says, voice as strained as ever. “I think I’m—I think this is it.”

It?

Kiyoomi isn’t making any sense. And yet, what clamps onto his heart is the feeling of raw dread that he has never felt before, akin to a snake that constricts his body, biting into him so that venom is pumped through his veins. He's sure that this must be what it feels like to die.

“Omi, I don't understand what you mean—”

“‘Tsumu!” Kiyoomi looks at him then, eyes wide like saucers, his skin a faint glow of yellow as more fireflies appear around him. “My hand. Look at my hand.”

So he looks, really looks this time.

And he wishes he didn’t.

Kiyoomi wasn’t clenching his fist so that Atsumu couldn’t see his fingers, it was that his fingers weren’t there anymore. Where the long, knobly, familiar fingers should be is nothing, where his palm should be is now closely resembling a stump. The yellow lights are not fireflies, Atsumu realises. Not actually.

The fireflies don’t come to surround Kiyoomi, they’re coming from him. Pieces of his being slowly breaking off like dead leaves in autumn, floating aimlessly in the wind. A rule of nature that the only rule is the flow of time. 

Their summer is coming to an end.

“Omi,” he gasps, a knife lodged up in his throat. “What’s happening?”

It’s a stupid question. He knows what’s happening. He’s lived the last nine years of his life cautious of one thing and it’s to prevent this moment. All those times he got jealous and yelled at Osamu for touching Kiyoomi through his yukata can't even compare to how utterly stupid he feels right now.

The first rule.

The only rule that actually mattered between them.

Atsumu easily breaks it like stepping on dried leaves in the colder months, the crunch of what once was under his feet.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can say.

Kiyoomi's other hand starts to dissolve too. His fingertips glow yellow and slowly, _slowly,_ they break off his being so easily like they were meant to, like this isn't at the cost of Atsumu’s shattering heart. The shards are so sharp, he wonders why blood isn't seeping through his clothes right at this moment.

“Atsumu, come here,” he hears a voice whisper.

His feet won’t move though. And he’s sure the voice was a hallucination, Kiyoomi would never call him closer after what he did. He was telling him to stay away just moments before.

“Atsumu,” that voice says again, louder this time. “Please, we don’t have much time.”

Time.

Atsumu hates time.

It’s the thing that he loses at the end of each summer when he has to go back home. It’s the thing that bends into weird shapes when he looks into Kiyoomi’s eyes. It's the thing that broke when he touched Kiyoomi's cold hand.

Atsumu looks up and locks eyes with Kiyoomi. To his surprise, the other doesn’t seem angry anymore. He seems more subdued, maybe even tired, but that gives his joints an ache all the same.

Kiyoomi’s cheeks glow yellow, the light casting warmth onto a face that would be counted as a dead man. There are still tear streaks down the sides of his face but the boy has stopped crying long before. Instead he leans back on a tree, and raises what's left of his arm towards Atsumu.

This time, Atsumu listens to his silent request, and shuffles his feet towards the canopy.

“We don’t have much time, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi whispers again, voice heavy. “And I want to look at your face one last time. So please, take off the mask.”

Atsumu shakes his head. “I can’t. My hand—” _They’re trembling,_ he doesn’t say. 

He doesn’t need to because Kiyoomi looks down at his shaking hands and nods. “Okay. Then just stay here with me.”

“But—”

“I want you to stay. Just for a little while.”

Atsumu wants to say no. He wants to run away from this, back to his grandmother’s house where he can crawl under the covers of his bed and pretend to fall asleep. He’ll wake up in the morning, eat breakfast and walk back up the steps of the shrine to find Kiyoomi here again just like how he always is.

“I’ll stay with you,” is what he says.

And Kiyoomi, despite literally living through his childhood nightmare, smiles.

“Thank you.”

Atsumu stays. 

They don’t speak.

He waits in the night, as his body shakes with an overflow of too many emotions; regret, sadness, fear. And maybe he would even add _love._

But he doesn’t.

That’s not what he deserves.

He waits in the night until he’s alone.

Atsumu jolts awake. He’s sitting on the grass with his back pressed against a tree. In front of him is a shrine, but he can't really see much of it in the darkness.

This is weird.

Atsumu stands up and looks around, his clothes—his yukata?—are wet and stick to his frame and belatedly, he realises that it must have rained some time in the night.

He doesn’t even remember going out.

His hand shoots up to scratch his face but they meet another surface instead. 

Atsumu is wearing a mask.

He unties it and scrutinises it in his hand; it’s a traditional wooden mask, a white base with red streaks on its cheeks. He recognises it to be some sort of animal, a weasel maybe. 

Atsumu touches his cheek. They’re wet. He thought they would be dry if they were covered from the rain. He guesses not.

This is _really_ weird.

If he went out, why isn’t Osamu with him? He would never go to a festival alone without his brother. In fact, he doesn’t even remember how he got to this shrine in the first place. Has there ever been a shrine like this near his grandmother's house? He can’t really recall.

He takes one step forward and looks around again. 

The trees around the shrine seem to loom over him, invisible eyes that bore into his helpless soul and it honestly freaks him out a little. It scares him a lot, actually. He’s in an unfamiliar place in pitch darkness, surrounded by trees that feel like they’re watching his every move. But he knows that’s stupid. _They’re just trees, Atsumu,_ he reminds himself.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees small yellow lights that blink at him, the only source of light in the abyss of a summit. He watches the small display with increased interest. Fireflies have always been pretty to Atsumu. The periodic blinking serves as a way to soothe the erratic beating of his heart, tides that calm him down. Just a little.

But it doesn’t solve the entire problem: he still needs to get down from here.

Because Miya Atsumu is seventeen years old and he finds himself lost in a forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> terrible cliffhanger, i know but i hope you guys enjoyed this so far!
> 
> i wrote this while having in mind that it'll be a one shot under 10k but unfortunately, it grew legs and started running away from me so i had to split it in half (more or less) for my own sanity.
> 
> you can find me on my [twitter.](https://twitter.com/atsumu_twt)


	2. Chapter 2

_Years have gone but the pain is the same_ _  
__I have passed my days ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶_

* * *

As of late, Atsumu has been having those dreams again.

And he always wakes up crying.

The dreams start out pretty innocently; running through empty meadows, a hand that reaches into a creek, sunlight that peeps through the canopy of the trees, an abandoned shrine whose chimes tinkle in the wind, but then it starts to change. Suddenly, there’s an ache in his chest when he looks back at these places. Fireflies. A person beside him carved out. A hole in his memory.

He sits up, a cold shiver running through his entire body as he looks at the clock on the nightstand. The dull red lights tell him that it’s just past three AM.

Atsumu groans before laying back down, knowing damn well that he will have another sleepless night.

*

Atsumu is twenty-four years old and he is tired.

His days are monotonous, routine that has slowly chipped away his very being. He wakes up to the feeling of being alone and he’s not even sure why. Where are these feelings of emptiness even coming from? For as long as he can remember, he’s always had someone by his side, and yet ever since he was a teenager, he had never felt more alone in his life.

Is it possible to miss someone you don’t even remember?

“Well, I don’t about that one Tsum-Tsum,” a voice breaks through his thoughts and he swivels around in his chair to come face-to-face with Bokuto. He’s still peering at Atsumu’s computer, a vertical bar blinks next to a question that doesn’t seem to have a clear cut answer. A vertical blinking bar that can provide any answer. “Doesn’t missing someone mean you know them?”

Atsumu sighs. “Did’ja have to read over my work like that?” Not that he minded in particular. He enjoys Bokuto’s company for the most part. At the very least, he curbs the monotony of everyday life and he has been spicing it up since they first met three years ago.

“Well, Tsum-Tsum, you can read my work if you like!” 

“Sure, Bokkun.” He gives the other a small smile, one that he knows is enough to make him not question Atsumu’s obvious downturn in mood. He hopes Bokuto lets it go.

*

“‘Samu,” he starts. “Do you ever just feel sad?”

A pause.

“Well, I am a human being,” his brother deadpans, clearly trying to ignore him.

Atsumu leans back on his chair, groaning. “Ugh, I didn’t mean it like that. Why do you always have to take me so literally?”

“Maybe if you start makin’ some sense, I wouldn’t have to.”

“You’re such an ass, ‘Samu.”

“It takes one to know one, ‘Tsumu.” Osamu continues shaping the rice in his hands like normal. A routine of sorts that has been established since Atsumu can even remember. Memory is such a fickle thing; forgetting one thing and remembering the other. He wishes he could pick and choose just like how his brother chooses whatever it is he puts into the rice mound before wrapping it with seaweed.

He sets the onigiri he had just made to the side and finally, finally, looks up at his brother. “Why’re you here t’day, ‘Tsumu?”

Atsumu frowns. “What? I need a reason t’see you?”

Gaze unwavering, Osamu continues. “No. But you seeing me in person means somethin’s up. What happened?” And then, like some kind of twin mind reading ability, something lights up in Osamu’s eyes and he just _knows._ “Did’ja have that dream again?”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about—”

“Oh please. You lie all the damn time but that doesn’t mean you were ever any good at it,” his brother says, earning a scowl. “I just wanna know what it is _this_ time.”

Atsumu sighs. “Well,” he starts, his hands fiddling with his sleeve. “It was that dream again. And I just, I don’t get it. I never have.”

“Can ya like, I don’t know, walk me through it? No more vague words about whatever the fuck you’re dreamin’ about.” He passes the plate of onigiri to Atsumu. Fatty tuna, his favourite.

“Ugh. fine.” Atsumu takes a sip of his water, suddenly glad that he decided to come here after closing time when all of the customers are gone. “Well. I’ll have ya know, it’s pretty vague on my side, too. None of it makes any sense. All I can remember are glimpses and all I can feel is only there for a second.” _Fleeting,_ his brain supplies. “Sometimes, I see a shrine. It’s mostly durin’ the day time, but there are times where it’s at night. And when it’s at night, I know that it’s gonna be a bad dream again. Most of what I remember is some river in a forest, just playin’ in it, splashin’ around like we had all the time in the damn world. Sometimes, you’re in it but I would still feel alone. The images are all detached from each other but they also feel like there has t’be somethin’ that connects it all. Almost always, it’s like somethin’ is gone. Missin’. And I don’t think that it’s you. Actually, it’s never you.”

Osamu stares at him, long and hard, his whole mouth in a tight line. He’s in deep thought, taking in Atsumu’s childhood blunder of a stream of consciousness before he slowly nods.

“I think,” he starts, “I think it’s got somethin’ to do with Grandma.”

Atsumu frowns. “Grandma?”

“Yup. You said before that it’s all during summer. Back when we were kids, and Mom and Dad were too busy to take care of us durin’ the summers so we were always at Grandma’s house, remember?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anythin’?”

“Well, we stopped goin’ back there after she passed away. Weren’t you close with her?”

Atsumu thinks back to his grandmother threatening him with a wooden spoon when he didn’t want to eat his veggies, and when she raised her voice at him because he came back to the house in muddied shoes.

 _What were ya doin’ out there?_ She asked. _You’re a mess, Atsumu. Look at all the mud ya brought back in from the outside._

 _Playin’,_ he replied. _It’s only the genkan, it’s not like we can’t clean it._

 _Go take a bath, Atsumu. And then it’s straight ta bed after._ She frowned. _Tell your brother to join you, too._

They were seventeen when she died. He was walking back to the house in the dead of night, not sure of why he was out in the first place. But when he looked at the distance, he saw an ambulance, red flashing lights that casted a dangerous glow over everything in its immediate surrounding.

All Atsumu could do was run but his yukata was wound too tight and proved to be a difficult thing to run in.

“No, I’m pretty sure she hated me.” He would even swear it on her urn.

“She did not _hate_ you. You’re just bein’ dramatic.” Osamu rolls his eyes at him. He’s been rolling his eyes a lot more often these days.

“Nah, she always liked you better,” he says, taking a bite out of the onigiri. Fatty tuna really is the best.

Osamu crosses his arms over his chest. “Not my fault you were always runnin’ off to play in the woods.”

He stops, the onigiri only a few inches from his lips. “I was?” he asks, his eyebrow shooting up behind his hair.

“Yeah. Don’t tell me you don’t remember? You would leave the house first thing in the mornin’ and then come back right before sundown. I just remember how you were gone on most days. Grandma was always worried the first few times but then she just stopped caring as long as you came back home before it got dark.”

“Didn’t you go with me?” The food is stuffed in his mouth as he slurs the words out.

Osamu looks at him in disgust, eyeing the stray grains of rice that must have gotten stuck on his cheeks. “Sometimes. But most of the time I stayed back at Grandma’s house and helped her when she cooked. Your memory is a terrible thing, ‘Tsumu. Anyway, you’re disgusting.”

Ignoring the last part. Atsumu laughs. “And ya had the gall t’say that I was close to her? What are ya? Braggin’?”

“No, idiot. I’m just sayin’ that you were always runnin’ off to somewhere. Playin’ with the neighbourhood kids no doubt.”

“Neighbourhood kids?” Atsumu doesn’t even remember there being many neighbours in the first place let alone _kids_ his age in that town filled with old people.

Osamu shrugs. “Who else could’ja have been playin’ with?”

“I dunno.” He takes another bite. “Anyone but your ugly mug,” he adds after swallowing the tasty goodness.

“We have the same face, dumbass.” Unimpressed like usual but Atsumu has stopped trying to crack a joke for his dead crowd of a brother years ago. He’s much too funny, his humour miles ahead.

“Mine is still better.”

“Get out of my store. You’re stinkin’ up the place.”

Atsumu grins at the angry look on his brother’s face. “I’m a payin’ customer, ‘Samu. Ya can’t just throw me out the establishment. Unless ya want me to call Ma.”

His brother sighs, snatching an onigiri from the plate and munching on it himself.

*

A bad habit that Atsumu should have probably not picked up is smoking.

At first it started as curiosity but it has now somehow evolved into something he needs to do every time he gets the jitters. Inhaling smoke into his lungs has become strangely therapeutic despite actually paying for therapy sessions. Maybe he revels in the sensation of not being able to breathe. Suffocating seems more desirable to him now.

He should stop.

Probably.

Atsumu is walking through the doors from the smoking area when a hand comes up to tap his shoulder. He jumps and instantly flinches away. When he turns around, knowing that he’s probably red in the face from pure discomfort but he quickly deflates when he sees that it’s none other than Hinata, a newbie that somehow, Atsumu is now in charge of. The extra burden of responsibility has been another thing that’s been plaguing his head. Most people think he’s somewhat of a recluse now.

 _You were such a cheerful boy back then,_ someone would say.

_But now even someone’s touch would frighten you to death._

The imprint of the finger still feels hot on his shoulder blade, like scalding iron that is used to brand him as a property of a herd owner.

“Sorry,” he says. A force of habit these days too. But his voice has too much venom to actually be sorry of what it is that just transpired between them.

“Atsumu-san,” Hinata says, eyes shifting from his shoulder back to his eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Ya didn’ scare me.” _Don’t worry about it,_ he wants to say but the words can’t seem to leave his throat because all he can feel in it is the scratching of sandpaper. He just wants to leave now. He wants to go back home.

“Don’t worry about it, Shou-kun!” a loud voice booms. Bokuto. Of course. “Tsum-Tsum is probably just tired. Don’t worry.” He gives Atsumu a knowing look, one that says that he has his back. Figuratively. Bokuto has way more tact than Atsumu initially thought. “He’s just a little prickly.”

 _Like a sea urchin,_ a voice bounces off the walls in his head.

Belatedly, he realises that it’s his own voice that’s saying it.

He’s suddenly by a creek in the middle of the woods. When he looks down at his hands, all he can see are scabbed palms and small fingers. He’s a child. And he feels the warmth of being a child in his chest as he looks at the figure beside him. Blank where there should be a face.

Nothing again.

 _I’ll take you there,_ he says to the nothing.

But it’s not completely empty because yellow is a colour that he sees.

Yellow like the summer heat.

Yellow like a yukata.

Yellow like the laughter of a boy sat beside him.

A boy he doesn’t recognise or remember. A boy that remains blank despite how hard he tries to undo the inner workings of his mind.

*

“Atsumu-kun,” a voice says.

He looks up from his clasped hands, to meet the doctor’s eyes. He knows that asking for help is what you’re supposed to do when you’re helpless, but he still hates feeling owed, even though he knows that he’s paying his therapist.

Maybe it’s the feeling of baring one’s soul to someone else, the someone with no past connection and whom you’re soliciting money to.

“Yes?” he musters, voice as even as he can make it.

“You were telling me about these dreams that you’ve been having?” the other man asks from across him, a coffee table characteristically between them. A barrier between doctor and patient, person and person. His mind often wanders to walls and outlines and glass and sand. He doesn’t quite know what they’re all supposed to mean though.

“Well, it’s not any different from last time. Except, well, I talked to ‘Samu ‘bout it, see.” This gets the doctor’s attention. “And well, I remembered somethin’. That night where I woke up at the shrine, was the same night my grandma died. And since then well, since the funeral that is, we’ve never really gone back.”

“Were you close to your grandmother?”

“I guess we were. But according to ‘Samu, it’s not like we all spent that much time together durin’ the summers anyway. So I doubt it’s about her.”

The other man nods. “Sometimes the thing we need to do most, is to revisit.”

* * *

_You are still alive when I look to the sky_ _  
__In the night_

* * *

The train to his grandmother’s seaside town is only an hour away from where he works now, and it should have been familiar to Atsumu, but he can’t help but think about how so many things have changed. The train is polished, fitted with new seats since the last time he was here seven years ago for the funeral. He doesn’t know what that makes him feel. There is a coldness in his chest where there should have been warmth from the visit of nostalgia.

But Atsumu feels nothing. Nothing that would evoke any positive feelings or jog any lost memories. Maybe he was too intent on remembering that he didn’t even consider the thought of changing. Of course this town has changed. Atsumu just hopes that familiarity lurks somewhere between the shops and down the streets he used to walk on so often.

Maybe the sea would make him remember. But the last thing he remembers of the sea was a voice inside his head saying _I’ve never been to the sea._

He doesn’t recognise the voice, but he knows that he’s heard it from somewhere before. All he needs to do is dig deep. At least, that’s what his therapist told him to do.

His grandmother’s house has mostly been left alone since the funeral. Relatives only coming and going to dust the insides and remove the weeds that would grow around the house. But for all intents and purposes, the house looks exactly as it did seven years ago. When Atsumu toes his shoes off at the genkan, he eyes the ever familiar tatami mat flooring. He’s almost expecting his grandmother to pop in from the kitchen and call him to dinner, not before telling him off for letting the mud enter the house and saying that he needs a bath.

But she doesn’t.

Not that he actually thought she would. He’s alone in this house that was a staple in his childhood summers. This house that became so familiar despite only staying there for forty days in a year of three hundred and sixty-five days. Despite everything, he remembers his time here fondly.

After his bath, he sits on the _engawa_. At first, he thought of lighting a cigarette and pooling over the ash as time passes by but then he decided against it. Instead, he leans against a wooden pole, breathing in the clean air of the countryside—something he hasn’t had the luxury of having since moving to the city during his college years. It all feels so far away now; the time, the place, the people. Suddenly, the engawa of his grandmother’s home feels like a little island for himself where the oceans failed to swallow whole. He’s alive here. Miraculously, so. He towels his still-wet hair and stares at the field in front of him. The light from the moon illuminates his surroundings in a glowing blue. The chorus of the cicadas from earlier in the daytime is silent at night, the conductor of the orchestra going to sleep along with the rest of them.

He guesses it’s time for him to leave the hall too.

Atsumu stands up, patting away at his sweatpants, the towel now off his shoulder as he grips it on his side. He’s about to turn to leave when he sees a blinking in the corner of his eye. He turns towards the source and at the bushes near his grandmother’s yard, there are fireflies. Small, yellow flickering lights that turn green under the pale moonlight. He watches them wistfully, the slow movement reminding him of tides that push and pull at the sand between his feet, the vertical bar that stares at him when he’s about to write something of substance, the dull red glare of his clock that tells him that it’s time to wake up.

He smiles, not knowing why.

*

In his dream, Atsumu is eight years old and he’s running through a forest. He’s scared, blood pumping through his veins as adrenaline shoots through his body. His feet stamp on the ground in harsh steps as he makes his way towards his destination.

A creek.

There, he finds someone waiting for him, back turned away so he can’t see his face.

This boy has always been waiting for him and seems like he always will. The sight of him makes his chest squeeze, it’s not the fear that made him shiver like before. This is something akin to warmth spreads from his core and eight year old Atsumu doesn’t know what that is. He just knows that to quell whatever the feeling, he needs to get closer.

So he does.

He sits next to the boy in silence. And for the first time since memory has allowed, when he looks at the other, there is no blank where a face should be. Instead, there is a white mask, wooden, red streaks on the sides that look vaguely familiar. There’s an urge inside his body that tells him to reach out to the other boy. Slowly, his hand inches closer like it’s all happening in slow motion. The trembling of his extended arms looks like violent shaking in his eyes, but still he knows that this is something he has to do, unsure of what that reasoning might be.

When his hand holds the other’s, he notices two things. The first being that it feels like the earth has finally stilled. It doesn’t spin, nor does it orbit. It has stopped where time is supposed to flow like the water in the creek in front of them. The second thing he notices is that the other boy’s hand is warm—so warm that it feels like it might light on fire.

There’s a tingling on his fingers and when he turns to check, he realises that it’s not night time. _When did that happen?_ Atsumu frowns.

 _Atsumu,_ the boy beside him whispers, pulling him out of his reverie.

He looks up, and through the holes of the mask where the eyes should be, red liquid is spilling.

_Atsumu, my hands._

The boy lifts a hand up, and where their fingers connected, is now merely a stump, pieces of him splitting off like he’s made of dust.

_You did this._

Atsumu jolts awake, his hands and feet cold. His room is completely silent. It’s unnerving. There’s no rustling of any trees from outside, the night is still. Still dark out, he quickly grabs his phone to check the time. What stares back at him is a white clock on his dark wallpaper that reads _03:45._ There’s a throbbing in his head that he knows all too well is just going to lead to another migraine. Atsumu gets that a lot these days. He wishes he can go back to sleep now but if history is any indication, he’ll probably be awake until dawn. At this point, he might as well wait.

Sleep tries to pull him back to bed as he boils the water and makes himself tea, but Atsumu doesn’t want to fall to the temptation. He knows that laying down on that futon in that familiar yet unfamiliar bedroom will do nothing for him. The chrysanthemum tea subsides his headache but there’s a different throbbing now, one that he feels in his chest when he remembers back his dream. This one was the most vivid one yet. Atsumu shakes his head and makes his way to the bedroom, mug in hand. It's the same room he and Osamu used to sleep in when they were kids. It felt wrong to occupy his grandmother's room now that she’s gone, he decided to opt for something a little less eerie. Setting the mug on the old desk, he swivels the chair out and sits on it, looking out the window to the field behind the house.

He supposes this place has always felt a little magical. Though the scenery isn’t that far off from his own hometown, there’s a faraway quality this village has. Maybe it’s the people who seem to know everything about everyone with their sly smiles, maybe it’s the markets that seem to bustle with more life as the hours of the day pass behind them like people in the streets, maybe it’s the mountains that seem to encase this little seaside town, so clearly seen right here behind his grandmother’s house.

And then there’s the forest that is in view even from the distance. The green that’s all encompassing and thick that he wonders if anyone could ever walk in there blindly and come out sane.

Chimes. 

An old shrine.

Black hair in the wind.

Atsumu closes his eyes. His head started to hurt again.

He rests his chin on a hand and sighs, suddenly exhausted. Maybe he _should_ listen to the call of sleep. It’s louder than it was before and Atsumu has always been weak to temptation.

  
  


Atsumu decides that since he’s here, he might as well clean the house.

And in his efforts, he stumbles across things that he never thought he’d ever see again, namely, that one fox plushie he bought with Osamu. It’s orange, old, and dusty, and he never thought he’d ever see it again. Atsumu smiles at it fondly. He had brought it here with him when his parents first told them that he and Osamu would be spending their summers here. It’s not that Atsumu was shy, but he was never really good at making friends. At the very least, his little fox won’t leave him. But eventually he lost it, too. One day he realised that he didn’t need a lifeless friend when he has a real one who’s always waiting for him.

Atsumu’s eyebrows pinch in the middle of his forehead in deep thought.

A friend?

Staring back at the beady eyes of the fox plush, he can only manage to frown. He sets the toy aside, looking through the box his relatives had kept his things in and then he finds them: a pair of gloves, yellow and made of cheap wool.

Atsumu is pretty sure he remembers buying this. He had saved half of his lunch money for five months before he could buy it but he never wore it. He had given it to someone else, someone who he thought needed it. It’s far too hot to wear during the summer but he remembers how happy it made him feel when he saw it worn on pale hands. And then, their fingers intertwined for just a sweet moment before the warmth was gone.

“Fuck,” Atsumu says, hands reaching up to touch his temple. He probably needs to lie down.

  
  


Later in the day, he’s sitting at the engawa again, looking across the field towards the mountains in the distance. He’s seen this view many times before, but something is stranger now. The wind dances around him blowing the chimes hanging above in a delicate song. That is familiar too. It feels like a voice should be accompanied with it.

 _Tsumu-chan,_ his grandmother would say. _Time to eat. I’ve cut some watermelons for ya._

But this isn’t the voice that he hears right now. Instead, what’s inside his head is a whisper of a voice from far away, in the deepest corners of his memory. It’s faint at first and then it collects itself like snow that falls from the sky to the bed of white that piles up to his knees during the winter. This voice says _‘you’re planning on staying with me?’_

Atsumu stands up and then he runs.

He vaguely remembers going through something like this before—his feet taking off before his mind can even catch up to his thoughts. All he knows is that he needs to run and that someone is waiting for him.

The base of the mountain.

The stone arch of an old shrine.

Up the steps, one by one.

Behind the lantern is a dirt path, take it.

Beyond the dirt path is a creek, listen for it.

And truth be told, he did hear it first. Atsumu hears the rush of summer water that flows down the mountain into the small crevices of the land, one that happens to be this very creek. Through the thicket of the trees and the wild bushes, against all things, Atsumu sees a person.

No, Atsumu sees a man. 

The man is sitting with his back to Atsumu. He is dressed in a yellow yukata and Atsumu has a passing thought about whether or not there’s a festival nearby. On top of his head is a mop of black curls that gently bounce in the wind. Atsumu doesn’t know why, but there’s an ache in his chest that feels like a fist is gripping on his heart and squeezing it tight. His breath is raggedy and short as he peers at this person from behind the closest tree. The sun is bathed on him and gives his white skin a kind of glow and Atsumu wants to cry.

Suddenly fear holds onto him instead. It yanks him out of the summer’s warmth and he finds himself in winter. He takes a step back and a crack reverberates around them. He looks down, the broken twig split it half at his feet. When he looks back up, there are eyes on him.

The man is now staring at Atsumu with wide eyes and Atsumu can only stare back. He stares at the two moles stack on top of each other above his right eyebrow, his hair that falls over his forehead in small waves, his pale ivory-like skin that seems to grow paler by the second like he had just seen a ghost. And maybe he has, because Atsumu can see that this man is trembling.

 _Kiyoomi_ is trembling.

The memories flood back like waves of anxiety. This place, this person, their days together, their last day together. Atsumu knows that he has probably gone mad. What he’s seeing in front of him has to be a hallucination, a mirage, a dream. None of this can be real. Kiyoomi disappeared. He watched him disappear.

And yet, Kiyoomi is standing across from him, maskless as if he always was, as if he was always there, bare and unrelenting, like there are no secrets between them, only between the world they live in. There is shock in the other’s eyes, like he can’t believe that Atsumu is real either. Nothing about this makes any sense. 

But then, as if to prove the entire universe wrong, the figure in front of him says,

“Atsumu?”

And he can’t stop the tears anymore. Like he’s been punched in the gut, Atsumu can only gasp. He says the only thing that comes to mind, the only thing that has ever made sense.

Like memory that borrows itself through his lips, he says the name that he has said many times before, a name that is as familiar to him as his own.

“Omi?”

  
  


_“Kiyoomi-chan?”_

Kiyoomi opened his eyes. The sunlight peeped through the canopy of the trees in irregular streams. A familiar face was above his own, her eyebrows pinched in the center of her forehead.

“Kiyoomi-chan, are you okay?” Chihiro asked as she crouched beside him. Her dark brown hair cascaded down her face in equal parting, resting just over her shoulders. She was wearing her usual white yukata, the right wrapping over the left, a red obi tied over her waist.

He rubbed his eyes, sitting up. He was by the creek again but he couldn’t remember how he got there in the first place. The last thing in his memory was the shrine, the festival and—

“Atsumu,” he said, feeling the panic rush through his body like the lightning that shattered the ground the night before. “The festival, I—Atsumu. Where’s Atsumu?”

“Kiyoomi-chan,” she whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. “The festival was last week. Your friend isn’t here anymore.”

“Last week? But then,” he frowned. The grass that grew around him told him that no time had passed. It was just as green and unruly as it was the last time he saw them. “Chihiro-san, how am I alive? I thought—I thought I was going to die. Surely, I should have died.”

But the other only shook her head. “You got it all wrong, Kiyoomi-chan. You don’t die when a human touches you. You only got lost. Only for a short while.”

“Lost?”

“Anything lost in the forest will surely be found.” She smiled at him then, warm and knowing. She reached out, a hand cupping his cheek. “You were lost in more ways than one, Kiyoomi-chan. The forest found you, too.”

* * *

_You just let me know that you’re coming home_ _  
__And I’ll wait for you_

* * *

Kiyoomi has his hands on Atsumu’s shoulders when he finally calms down. He’s crying too, and yet all he’s trying to do right now is comfort Atsumu, which honestly makes him feel a little bad.

“How come you’re here, Omi?” he asks.

“I could ask you the same thing, idiot.”

And Atsumu manages to laugh through his tears. He wipes his eyes with his sleeve and rubs his nose on his shoulder. He knows his face is red and blotchy at this point but he decides that he can’t cry now, not when a weight has been lifted off his shoulder, not when the comet that was supposed to shoot down from the sky and destroy every plane of existence halted, not when Kiyoomi is standing in front of him, looking just as beautiful as he did the last time Atsumu saw him.

 _Why did you wait?_ he wants to ask.

“Didn’t I say I’d stay with ya?” he whispers instead.

Kiyoomi, beautiful and alive, smiles at him. “You always have.”

*

According to Kiyoomi, he was lost and then found, too.

The story goes like this; on an inconspicuous spring morning, something out of the ordinary happened. Under the newly bloomed flowers and hidden in the grove, a baby was left alone on the forest floor to fend for itself. His mother was nowhere to be seen. How she even came about in the forest was uncertain. The only thing that was certain was that a child was abandoned.

But the others preferred to say that the child was _lost._

“Apparently, they found a human baby in this forest. It was pale like a sheet, the skin around its lips were peeling off in the dryness and it was alone. Utterly and evidently alone. Normally, a baby would cry because they’re scared, or hungry or anything really, but it was silent like it was just sleeping. Like one day, it’ll wake up and it would all have just been a dream,” Kiyoomi closes his eyes as if reliving that memory he can’t even recall. “But it was like _I_ wouldn’t wake up. I was as good as dead. I probably would have died if I wasn’t found by the right people. The other yokai knew that. I think they took pity on me. They even prayed for me.

“But then one day, after the many days where I barely made a sound or ate or drank, I did open my eyes and then I started to cry. I was crying so much the first few hours, they wondered what they had to do to get that peace and quiet back,” he laughs. And then he turns to Atsumu, a tug on the edge of his lips as he continues. “The forest gave me life. That’s why I’m tied to it. That’s why I couldn’t leave.”

“So you’re—” Atsumu gulps. “Are you human?”

Kiyoomi shakes his head. He tucks a stray hair behind his ear, his lower lip in between his teeth as he tries to suppress a smile. “No, not anymore. I’m not much like the rest either. I age faster than I should when I’m exposed to humans. I think that’s my body telling me that it’s starting to let go. I guess I exist in the inbetween. My body might be able to die though, but souls are eternal.”

He used to imagine a shackle around Kiyoomi’s ankle starting to rust, growing brittle as time passes. One day it might even snap. But now he thinks of it more as an anchor. Something that keeps him here as he docks on these shores, but he can leave once he’s ready. He can leave when he finds somewhere else to dock. A destination to somewhere else when he’s out on the open water by himself. Maybe this whole time, Kiyoomi needed a lighthouse.

Atsumu stares at him, the way Kiyoomi looks is beautiful in this light and in every other light. A being that shouldn’t exist but does. A baby that should have died but didn’t. He defies all the rules of the universe, bends space and time into his own wants. Kiyoomi is strange and Atsumu doesn’t want to ever be apart from him.

“Kiyoomi, I,” he says, a hand already reaching out towards the other. But then he realises what it is that he’s doing and stops himself, the hand hovering a few inches from Kiyoomi’s face. He starts to pull the hand back. “Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve—” 

But before he can continue the words, Kiyoomi rests his cheek there, in the openness of Atsumu’s palm. Cool skin against warmth.

Kiyoomi closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath. “This is nice, Atsumu. Let’s stay like this a little longer,” he whispers.

  
  


They find each other again. 

Somehow.

Slowly but surely.

And what follows is the tentative touching of one’s skin, something that Atsumu could never imagine as a child and even as a teenager.

At first, it’s fingers that shyly graze the other’s hand. And then it quickly accelerates to holding it. Palm against palm, skin against skin, warmth against warmth. And when it happened for the first time, Kiyoomi cried. But now Atsumu can dry his tears, a palm on his cheek as he thumbs them away. Now Atsumu can do something like placing a hand in his hair as he pulls Kiyoomi into a hug, warm arms that circle his body. Warm arms that feel like home.

  
  


_Did you forget about me?_

The question shifts the air between them.

 _Will you forget about me?_ Is another question left unuttered.

“I did forget,” Atsumu admits, his hands still clasped together in prayer. The shrine around them is deserted, not like he expected any less of it. Still, there are _omikuji_ tied on strings, left untouched for years, frozen in time. Atsumu wonders if that’s even possible to do, but when he turns around and looks into Kiyoomi’s eyes, he feels like it can happen. “I forgot for a long time.”

Kiyoomi stares at him for a few moments and then nods. “I expected you to. But I knew you’d come back, one way or another.”

“How did’ja know that?” The wind starts to blow around them, always stronger up here on higher ground. The chimes left at the shrine tinkle. It’s almost like a memory taken directly from where it’s filed in his head.

“An inkling.” He smiles.

But Atsumu doesn’t. “I wish I had your confidence, Omi-kun. I’m always anxious when I think about us again.” _I have to leave soon,_ he doesn’t say. 

He doesn’t have to say because Kiyoomi looks at him with understanding. “It’s not like I’m not scared either, Atsumu. But I’m sure about this. About us. You’ll come back to me each time.”

“How do you know that?” he asks, a little exasperated now. 

“Because I’ll be waiting for you.” 

  
*

He visits during the weekends, and during his holidays, and whenever he has days where he’s free. The best part of being a writer is that he can do it anywhere and he’s not always needed at the office.

Still, that doesn’t stop his current predicament as he recalls the most recent visit to an izakaya to Kiyoomi.

“My coworkers keep tryin’ to set me up,” Atsumu laughs, leaning back on the grass. “It’s getting pretty annoyin’ actually.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t move an inch, and in a flat voice, he says, “Aren’t they just worried about you?”

“Nah, it’s not somethin’ to be worried about. ‘S not like I’m old or lonely right now.”

“You aren’t lonely?” the other asks.

Atsumu turns to him. “I got you, don’t I?”

A huff of a breath beside him. “Still. Isn’t normal for people your age to get married?” Kiyoomi draws his knees to his chest and rests his chin there, staring out into nothing in particular.

“Ya make yourself sound ancient when ya say stuff like that, Omi-kun. ‘Sides, do yokais even get married?” Atsumu challenges, an eyebrow raised.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi answers like it’s supposed to be obvious. It’s not Atsumu’s fault he’s a human.

But still, all rational seems to fly out the window when he looks at the other. Because now, under the shade of the trees, on the banks of the very creek they would play in as children, Atsumu can’t help but think about how lucky he is to have gotten lost. He was found and he still is found. He can’t help but think that Kiyoomi is the most beautiful being he’s ever set eyes on. He can’t help the question that slips from his lips.

“Do you want to get married?”

Kiyoomi turns to him, the tips of his ears pink, a hint of a smile on his lips, and then he nods.

*

Three sips of sake.

Three different cups.

A promise.

Hands are intertwined.

*

Atsumu wakes up to the sound of birds chirping outside his window, the rays of sunlight pass through the gaps of the curtains, bathing the room in a warm glow. He didn’t used to be a morning person but he now wonders if that habit comes with age.

It’s summer now.

When he was much younger, he hated the summer, the heat of it all becoming unbearable as it slowly reached its peak when the months would pass. But then he found a friend who somehow made it all worth it.

He moves to the bathroom to wash his face. What he sees is an older man staring back at him in the mirror. A few years ago, his eyes started to sag, and the crinkles around them became more prominent. He had stopped bleaching his hair ages ago but still, it started to turn white too. Atsumu is old and he has come to accept that that comes with time.

He gets dressed, boils himself a cup of tea before he leaves the house.

Atsumu has taken this path more times than he can count since he was eight years old, and now he’s nearing the age of seventy. It’s been a little harder these days, climbing up the steep steps but routine has given him some strength in his bones, and a goal has given him determination. So he does climb up the steps, a detour in the shape of a dirt path that leads to a creek through the shrub. Atsumu knows that someone is waiting there, because he has always been waiting there.

Peering behind one of the trees, he sees an older man in a yellow yukata, a white mop of curls on his head, no mask covering his face, something that was discarded years ago.

He moves to sit next to him and feels the other inch closer when he does.

“You’re here,” Kiyoomi says, an arm wrapping around his own.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

For a while, they just sit like that, Kiyoomi’s head resting on his shoulder as they talk about whatever it is that comes to mind. Atsumu knows that this moment is called peace, and the warmth in his chest is called love.

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi whispers after a while. “I think it’s time to leave.”

“Hm?” he hums in response. The sun is still up, nowhere nearing sunset.

“I want to go to the ocean. Can you take me there?” He lifts his head and turns to look at Atsumu, his skin just as ivory as it was the day they met, but now, even his curls are white. There is something in Kiyoomi’s eyes, fondness maybe.

Atsumu smiles.

“Of course,” he says before standing up, a hand outstretched for the other to take it.

He does.

* * *

_Death is a wall, but it can’t be the end_ _  
__You are my protector and my best friend_ _  
__Well, they say that you’re gone and that I should move on_  
 _I wonder: How do they know?_ _  
_Well, they don’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE. IT'S FINALLY DONE.
> 
> thank you to my friend who was there from the beginning aka me just ranting about this in the DMs and because of that, a story was somehow formed.
> 
> thank you to my readers. I hope you enjoyed this little story of mine.
> 
> you can find me on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/atsumu_twt).
> 
> until next time! <3


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